Geology and Resources of Some World Oil-Shale Deposits

U.S.
Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey
Scientific Investigations Report 20055294
Geology and Resources of Some World Oil-Shale Deposits
Cover.
Left: New Paraho Co. experimental oil shale retort in the Piceance Creek Basin a few miles west of Rifle, Colorado.
Top right: Photo of large specimen of Green River oil shale interbedded with gray layers of volcanic tuff from the
Mahogany zone in the Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado. This specimen is on display at the museum of the Geological
Survey of Japan.
Bottom right: Block diagram of the oil shale resources in the Mahogany zone in about 1,100 square miles in the eastern
part of the Uinta Basin, Utah. The vertical scale is in thousands of barrels of in-place shale oil per acre and the horizontal
scales are in UTM coordinates. Illustration published as figure 17 in U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 91-0285.
Geology and Resources of Some World
Oil-Shale Deposits
By John R. Dyni
Scientific Investigations Report 20055294
U.S. Department of the Interior
U.S. Department of the Interior
Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary
P. Patrick Leahy, Acting Director
U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2006
Posted onlline June 2006
Version 1.0
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Suggested citation:
Dyni, J.R., 2006, Geology and resources of some world oil-shale deposits: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific
Investigations Report 20055294, 42 p.
iii
Contents
Abstract ...........................................................................................................................................................1
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................1
Recoverable Resources................................................................................................................................2
Determining Grade of Oil Shale ...................................................................................................................2
Origin of Organic Matter ...............................................................................................................................3
Thermal Maturity of Organic Matter ..........................................................................................................3
Classification of Oil Shale .............................................................................................................................3
Evaluation of Oil-Shale Resources .............................................................................................................5
Australia ..........................................................................................................................................................5
Torbanite .................................................................................................................................................5
Tasmanite ...............................................................................................................................................5
Toolebuc Oil Shale ................................................................................................................................6
Eastern Queensland .............................................................................................................................6
Brazil ................................................................................................................................................................8
Paraba Valley ........................................................................................................................................8
Irat Formation .......................................................................................................................................8
Canada ...........................................................................................................................................................10
New Brunswick Oil Shale ..................................................................................................................10
China ..............................................................................................................................................................13
Fushun ..................................................................................................................................................13
Maoming...............................................................................................................................................15
Estonia ...........................................................................................................................................................15
Dictyonema Shale ...............................................................................................................................17
Israel ..............................................................................................................................................................17
Jordan ............................................................................................................................................................18
Syria ...............................................................................................................................................................21
Morocco ........................................................................................................................................................21
Russia.............................................................................................................................................................21
Sweden ..........................................................................................................................................................21
Thailand .........................................................................................................................................................25
Turkey .............................................................................................................................................................25
United States ................................................................................................................................................25
Green River Formation .......................................................................................................................25
Geology ........................................................................................................................................25
Historical Developments ..........................................................................................................27
Shale-Oil Resources ..................................................................................................................29
Other Mineral Resources .........................................................................................................29
Eastern DevonianMississippian Oil Shale ....................................................................................29
Depositional Environment ........................................................................................................29
Resources ...................................................................................................................................31
Summary of World Resources of Shale Oil .............................................................................................33
References Cited..........................................................................................................................................38
iv
Figures
1. Classification of oil shales ...........................................................................................................4
2. Deposits of oil shale in Australia ................................................................................................7
3. Deposits of oil shale in Brazil ......................................................................................................8
4. Typical lithologic log and shale-oil yield of the Irat oil shale, Brazil ...................................9
5. Oil-shale deposits in Canada ....................................................................................................11
6. Oil-shale deposits in the Maritime Provinces, Canada ........................................................13
7. Geologic cross section (A) and stratigraphic section (B) of the Fushun oil-shale
deposit, Liaoning Province, China. ...........................................................................................14
8. Location and stratigraphic section of kukersite deposits, northern Estonia
and Russia ....................................................................................................................................16
9. Isopach map of the Ordovician Dictyonema Shale in northern Estonia. ...........................18
10. Deposits of oil shale in Israel ....................................................................................................19
11. Oil-shale deposits in Jordan .....................................................................................................20
12. Oil-shale deposits in Morocco .................................................................................................22
13. Stratigraphic section of Timahdit oil-shale deposit, El Koubbat syncline, Morocco ......23
14. Map showing distribution of Alum Shale, Sweden ...............................................................24
15. Lithology and plots of the abundances of organic carbon and uranium in a
drill core from the Alum Shale at Ranstad, Sweden .............................................................26
16. Areas underlain by the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and
Wyoming, United States ............................................................................................................28
17. Generalized stratigraphic section of the Green River Formation and
associated rocks in the north-central part of the Piceance Creek Basin,
northwestern Colorado, United States ...................................................................................30
18. Paleogeographic map showing shoreline of the Late Devonian sea in
eastern United States and major areas of surface-mineable
Devonian oil shale ......................................................................................................................32
19. Production of oil shale in millions of metric tons from Estonia (Estonia deposit),
Russia (Leningrad and Kashpir deposits), United Kingdom (Scotland, Lothians),
Brazil (Irat Formation), China (Maoming and Fushun deposits), and
Germany (Dotternhausen) from 1880 to 2000 .........................................................................38
Tables
1. Demonstrated resources of oil-shale deposits in Australia ..................................................6
2. Average properties of Irat oil shale mined at So Mateus do Sul ....................................10
3. Oil-shale deposits in Canada ....................................................................................................12
4. Characteristics of 10 deposits of oil shale in Israel ..............................................................17
5. Resource data for eight deposits of oil shale in Jordan ......................................................20
6. Summary of the fossil energy potential of the Alum Shale in Sweden for
shale containing more than 10 percent organic matter .......................................................26
7. Oil-shale deposits of Turkey ......................................................................................................27
v
8. Summary of energy and mineral resources of Green River Formation in Colorado,
Utah, and Wyoming, United States ..........................................................................................31
9. Estimated resources of near-surface oil shale in eastern United States by
hydroretorting ..............................................................................................................................33
10. In-situ shale-oil resources of some world oil-shale deposits .............................................34
Geology and Resources of Some World Oil-Shale
Deposits
1

By John R. Dyni
Abstract
Oil-shale deposits are in many parts of the world. They
range in age from Cambrian to Tertiary and were formed in
a variety of marine, continental, and lacustrine depositional
environments. The largest known deposit is in the Green River
Formation in the western United States; it contains an esti-
mated 213 billion tons of in-situ shale oil (about 1.5 trillion
U.S. barrels).
Total resources of a selected group of oil shale deposits in
33 countries are estimated at 409 billion tons of in-situ shale
oil, which is equivalent to 2.8 trillion U.S. barrels of shale
oil. These amounts are very conservative because (1) several
deposits mentioned herein have not been explored sufficiently
to make accurate estimates, and (2) some deposits were not
included in this survey.
Introduction
Oil shale is commonly defined as a fine-grained sedi-
mentary rock containing organic matter that yields substantial
amounts of oil and combustible gas upon destructive distil-
lation. Most of the organic matter is insoluble in ordinary
organic solvents; therefore, it must be decomposed by heat-
ing to release such materials. Underlying most definitions of
oil shale is its potential for the economic recovery of energy,
including shale oil and combustible gas, as well as a number
of byproducts. A deposit of oil shale having economic poten-
tial is generally one that is at or near enough to the surface to
be developed by open-pit or conventional underground mining
or by in-situ methods.
Oil shales range widely in organic content and oil yield.
Commercial grades of oil shale, as determined by their yield
of shale oil, ranges from about 100 to 200 liters per metric
ton (l/t) of rock. The U.S. Geological Survey has used a lower
limit of about 40 l/t for classification of Federal oil-shale
lands. Others have suggested a limit as low as 25 l/t.
Deposits of oil shale are in many parts of the world.
These deposits, which range from Cambrian to Tertiary age,
may occur as minor accumulations of little or no economic
value or giant deposits that occupy thousands of square
kilometers and reach thicknesses of 700 m or more. Oil shales
were deposited in a variety of depositional environments,
including fresh-water to highly saline lakes, epicontinental
marine basins and subtidal shelves, and in limnic and coastal
swamps, commonly in association with deposits of coal.
In terms of mineral and elemental content, oil shale dif-
fers from coal in several distinct ways. Oil shales typically
contain much larger amounts of inert mineral matter (6090
percent) than coals, which have been defined as containing
less than 40 percent mineral matter. The organic matter of oil
shale, which is the source of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons,
typically has a higher hydrogen and lower oxygen content than
that of lignite and bituminous coal.
In general, the precursors of the organic matter in oil
shale and coal also differ. Much of the organic matter in
oil shale is of algal origin, but may also include remains of
vascular land plants that more commonly compose much of
the organic matter in coal. The origin of some of the organic
matter in oil shale is obscure because of the lack of recogniz-
able biologic structures that would help identify the precursor
organisms. Such materials may be of bacterial origin or the
product of bacterial degradation of algae or other organic
matter.
The mineral component of some oil shales is composed
of carbonates including calcite, dolomite, and siderite, with
lesser amounts of aluminosilicates. For other oil shales, the
reverse is truesilicates including quartz, feldspar, and clay
minerals are dominant and carbonates are a minor compo-
nent. Many oil-shale deposits contain small, but ubiquitous,
amounts of sulfides including pyrite and marcasite, indicat-
ing that the sediments probably accumulated in dysaerobic
to anoxic waters that prevented the destruction of the organic
matter by burrowing organisms and oxidation.
Although shale oil in todays (2004) world market is not
competitive with petroleum, natural gas, or coal, it is used in
several countries that possess easily exploitable deposits of
oil shale but lack other fossil fuel resources. Some oil-shale
deposits contain minerals and metals that add byproduct value
such as alum [KAl(SO
4
)
2
12H
2
O], nahcolite (NaHCO
3
),
1
An earlier version of this report was published in Oil Shale, 2003, v. 20, no. 3, p. 193252.
dawsonite [NaAl(OH)
2
CO
3
], sulfur, ammonium sulfate, vana-
dium, zinc, copper, and uranium.
The gross heating value of oil shales on a dry-weight
basis ranges from about 500 to 4,000 kilocalories per kilo-
gram (kcal/kg) of rock. The high-grade kukersite oil shale of
Estonia, which fuels several electric power plants, has a heat-
ing value of about 2,000 to 2,200 kcal/kg. By comparison, the
heating value of lignitic coal ranges from 3,500 to
4,600 kcal/kg on a dry, mineral-free basis (American Society
for Testing Materials, 1966).
Tectonic events and volcanism have altered some depos-
its. Structural deformation may impair the mining of an oil-
shale deposit, whereas igneous intrusions may have thermally
degraded the organic matter. Thermal alteration of this type
may be restricted to a small part of the deposit, or it may be
widespread making most of the deposit unfit for recovery of
shale oil.
The purpose of this report is to (1) discuss the geology
and summarize the resources of selected deposits of oil shale
in varied geologic settings from different parts of the world
and (2) present new information on selected deposits devel-
oped since 1990 (Russell, 1990).
Recoverable Resources
The commercial development of an oil-shale deposit
depends upon many factors. The geologic setting and the
physical and chemical characteristics of the resource are of
primary importance. Roads, railroads, power lines, water, and
available labor are among the factors to be considered in deter-
mining the viability of an oil-shale operation. Oil-shale lands
that could be mined may be preempted by present land usage
such as population centers, parks, and wildlife refuges. Devel-
opment of new in-situ mining and processing technologies
may allow an oil-shale operation in previously restricted areas
without causing damage to the surface or posing problems of
air and water pollution.
The availability and price of petroleum ultimately effect
the viability of a large-scale oil-shale industry. Today, few, if
any deposits can be economically mined and processed for
shale oil in competition with petroleum. Nevertheless, some
countries with oil-shale resources, but lack petroleum reserves,
find it expedient to operate an oil-shale industry. As supplies
of petroleum diminish in future years and costs for petroleum
increase, greater use of oil shale for the production of electric
power, transportation fuels, petrochemicals, and other indus-
trial products seems likely.
Determining Grade of Oil Shale
The grade of oil shale has been determined by many dif-
ferent methods with the results expressed in a variety of units.
The heating value of the oil shale may be determined using
a calorimeter. Values obtained by this method are reported in
English or metric units, such as British thermal units (Btu)
per pound of oil shale, calories per gram (cal/gm) of rock,
kilocalories per kilogram (kcal/kg) of rock, megajoules per
kilogram (MJ/kg) of rock, and other units. The heating value is
useful for determining the quality of an oil shale that is burned
directly in a power plant to produce electricity. Although the
heating value of a given oil shale is a useful and fundamental
property of the rock, it does not provide information on the
amounts of shale oil or combustible gas that would be yielded
by retorting (destructive distillation).
The grade of oil shale can be determined by measur-
ing the yield of oil of a shale sample in a laboratory retort.
This is perhaps the most common type of analysis that is
currently used to evaluate an oil-shale resource. The method
commonly used in the United States is called the modified
Fischer assay, first developed in Germany, then adapted by
the U.S. Bureau of Mines for analyzing oil shale of the Green
River Formation in the western United States (Stanfield and
Frost, 1949). The technique was subsequently standardized
as the American Society for Testing and Materials Method D-
3904-80 (1984). Some laboratories have further modified the
Fischer assay method to better evaluate different types of oil
shale and different methods of oil-shale processing.
The standardized Fischer assay method consists of heat-
ing a 100-gram sample crushed to 8 mesh (2.38-mm mesh)
screen in a small aluminum retort to 500C at a rate of 12C
per minute and held at that temperature for 40 minutes. The
distilled vapors of oil, gas, and water are passed through a
condenser cooled with ice water into a graduated centrifuge
tube. The oil and water are then separated by centrifuging. The
quantities reported are the weight percentages of shale oil (and
its specific gravity), water, shale residue, and gas plus loss
by difference.
The Fischer assay method does not determine the total
available energy in an oil shale. When oil shale is retorted, the
organic matter decomposes into oil, gas, and a residuum of
carbon char remaining in the retorted shale. The amounts of
individual gaseschiefly hydrocarbons, hydrogen, and carbon
dioxideare not normally determined but are reported collec-
tively as gas plus loss, which is the difference of 100 weight
percent minus the sum of the weights of oil, water, and spent
shale. Some oil shales may have a greater energy potential
than that reported by the Fischer assay method depending on
the components of the gas plus loss.
The Fischer assay method also does not necessarily
indicate the maximum amount of oil that can be produced by
a given oil shale. Other retorting methods, such as the Tosco
II process, are known to yield in excess of 100 percent of the
yield reported by Fischer assay. In fact, special methods of
retorting, such as the Hytort process, can increase oil yields
of some oil shales by as much as three to four times the yield
obtained by the Fischer assay method (Schora and others,
1983; Dyni and others, 1990). At best, the Fischer assay
method only approximates the energy potential of an
oil-shale deposit.
2 Geology and Resources of Some World Oil-Shale Deposits
Newer techniques for evaluating oil-shale resources
include the Rock-Eval and the material-balance Fischer
assay methods. Both give more complete information about
the grade of oil shale, but are not widely used. The modified
Fischer assay, or close variations thereof, is still the major
source of information for most deposits.
It would be useful to develop a simple and reliable assay
method for determining the energy potential of an oil shale
that would include the total heat energy and the amounts of
oil, water, combustible gases including hydrogen, and char in
sample residue.
Origin of Organic Matter
Organic matter in oil shale includes the remains of algae,
spores, pollen, plant cuticle and corky fragments of herba-
ceous and woody plants, and other cellular remains of lacus-
trine, marine, and land plants. These materials are composed
chiefly of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur.
Some organic matter retains enough biological structures
so that specific types can be identified as to genus and even
species. In some oil shales, the organic matter is unstructured
and is best described as amorphous (bituminite). The origin
of this amorphous material is not well known, but it is likely a
mixture of degraded algal or bacterial remains. Small amounts
of plant resins and waxes also contribute to the organic matter.
Fossil shell and bone fragments composed of phosphatic and
carbonate minerals, although of organic origin, are excluded
from the definition of organic matter used herein and are con-
sidered to be part of the mineral matrix of the oil shale.
Most of the organic matter in oil shales is derived from
various types of marine and lacustrine algae. It may also
include varied admixtures of biologically higher forms of
plant debris that depend on the depositional environment and
geographic position. Bacterial remains can be volumetrically
important in many oil shales, but they are difficult to identify.
Most of the organic matter in oil shale is insoluble in
ordinary organic solvents, whereas some is bitumen that is sol-
uble in certain organic solvents. Solid hydrocarbons, including
gilsonite, wurtzilite, grahamite, ozokerite, and albertite, are
present as veins or pods in some oil shales. These hydrocar-
bons have somewhat varied chemical and physical characteris-
tics, and several have been mined commercially.
Thermal Maturity of Organic Matter
The thermal maturity of an oil shale refers to the degree
to which the organic matter has been altered by geothermal
heating. If the oil shale is heated to a high enough tempera-
ture, as may be the case if the oil shale were deeply buried,
the organic matter may thermally decompose to form oil and
gas. Under such circumstances, oil shales can be source rocks
for petroleum and natural gas. The Green River oil shale, for
example, is presumed to be the source of the oil in the Red
Wash field in northeastern Utah. On the other hand, oil-shale
deposits that have economic potential for their shale-oil and
gas yields are geothermally immature and have not been sub-
jected to excessive heating. Such deposits are generally close
enough to the surface to be mined by open-pit, underground
mining, or by in-situ methods.
The degree of thermal maturity of an oil shale can be
determined in the laboratory by several methods. One tech-
nique is to observe the changes in color of the organic matter
in samples collected from varied depths in a borehole. Assum-
ing that the organic matter is subjected to geothermal heating
as a function of depth, the colors of certain types of organic
matter change from lighter to darker colors. These color dif-
ferences can be noted by a petrographer and measured using
photometric techniques.
Geothermal maturity of organic matter in oil shale is also
determined by the reflectance of vitrinite (a common constitu-
ent of coal derived from vascular land plants), if present in
the rock. Vitrinite reflectance is commonly used by petroleum
explorationists to determine the degree of geothermal altera-
tion of petroleum source rocks in a sedimentary basin. A scale
of vitrinite reflectances has been developed that indicates
when the organic matter in a sedimentary rock has reached
temperatures high enough to generate oil and gas. However,
this method can pose a problem with respect to oil shale,
because the reflectance of vitrinite may be depressed by the
presence of lipid-rich organic matter.
Vitrinite may be difficult to recognize in oil shale because
it resembles other organic material of algal origin and may not
have the same reflectance response as vitrinite, thereby leading
to erroneous conclusions. For this reason, it may be neces-
sary to measure vitrinite reflectance from laterally equivalent
vitrinite-bearing rocks that lack the algal material.
In areas where the rocks have been subjected to complex
folding and faulting or have been intruded by igneous rocks,
the geothermal maturity of the oil shale should be evaluated
for proper determination of the economic potential of the
deposit.
Classification of Oil Shale
Oil shale has received many different names over the
years, such as cannel coal, boghead coal, alum shale, stellarite,
albertite, kerosene shale, bituminite, gas coal, algal coal, wol-
longite, schistes bitumineux, torbanite, and kukersite. Some
of these names are still used for certain types of oil shale.
Recently, however, attempts have been made to systematically
classify the many different types of oil shale on the basis of
the depositional environment of the deposit, the petrographic
character of the organic matter, and the precursor organisms
from which the organic matter was derived.
Classification of Oil Shale 3
A useful classification of oil shales was developed by
A.C. Hutton (1987, 1988, 1991), who pioneered the use of
blue/ultraviolet fluorescent microscopy in the study of oil-
shale deposits of Australia. Adapting petrographic terms from
coal terminology, Hutton developed a classification of oil
shale based primarily on the origin of the organic matter. His
classification has proved to be useful for correlating different
kinds of organic matter in oil shale with the chemistry of the
hydrocarbons derived from oil shale.
Hutton (1991) visualized oil shale as one of three broad
groups of organic-rich sedimentary rocks: (1) humic coal and
carbonaceous shale, (2) bitumen-impregnated rock, and (3) oil
shale. He then divided oil shale into three groups based upon
their environments of depositionterrestrial, lacustrine, and
marine (fig. 1).
been fully characterized with respect to its composition or
origin, but it is commonly an important component of marine
oil shales. Coaly materials including vitrinite and inertinite
are rare to abundant components of oil shale; both are derived
from humic matter of land plants and have moderate and high
reflectance, respectively, under the microscope.
Within his three-fold grouping of oil shales (terrestrial,
lacustrine, and marine), Hutton (1991) recognized six specific
oil-shale types: cannel coal, lamosite, marinite, torbanite, tas-
manite, and kukersite. The most abundant and largest deposits
are marinites and lamosites.
Cannel coal is brown to black oil shale composed of
resins, spores, waxes, and cutinaceous and corky materials
derived from terrestrial vascular plants together with varied
amounts of vitrinite and inertinite. Cannel coals originate
in oxygen-deficient ponds or shallow lakes in peat-forming
swamps and bogs (Stach and others, 1975, p. 236237).
Lamosite is pale- and grayish-brown and dark gray to
black oil shale in which the chief organic constituent is lamal-
ginite derived from lacustrine planktonic algae. Other minor
components in lamosite include vitrinite, inertinite, telalginite,
and bitumen. The Green River oil-shale deposits in western
United States and a number of the Tertiary lacustrine deposits
in eastern Queensland, Australia, are lamosites.
Marinite is a gray to dark gray to black oil shale of
marine origin in which the chief organic components are
lamalginite and bituminite derived chiefly from marine
phytoplankton. Marinite may also contain small amounts of
bitumen, telalginite, and vitrinite. Marinites are deposited typi-
cally in epeiric seas such as on broad shallow marine shelves
or inland seas where wave action is restricted and currents are
minimal. The DevonianMississippian oil shales of eastern
United States are typical marinites. Such deposits are gener-
ally widespread covering hundreds to thousands of square
kilometers, but they are relatively thin, often less than about
100 m.
Torbanite, tasmanite, and kukersite are related to specific
kinds of algae from which the organic matter was derived;
the names are based on local geographic features. Torbanite,
named after Torbane Hill in Scotland, is a black oil shale
whose organic matter is composed mainly of telalginite
derived largely from lipid-rich Botryococcus and related algal
forms found in fresh- to brackish-water lakes. It also contains
small amounts of vitrinite and inertinite. The deposits are
commonly small, but can be extremely high grade. Tasman-
ite, named from oil-shale deposits in Tasmania, is a brown
to black oil shale. The organic matter consists of telalginite
derived chiefly from unicellular tasmanitid algae of marine
origin and lesser amounts of vitrinite, lamalginite, and iner-
tinite. Kukersite, which takes its name from Kukruse Manor
near the town of Kohtla-Jrve, Estonia, is a light brown marine
oil shale. Its principal organic component is telalginite derived
from the green alga, Gloeocapsomorpha prisca. The Estonian
oil-shale deposit in northern Estonia along the southern coast
of the Gulf of Finland and its eastern extension into Russia,
the Leningrad deposit, are kukersites.
Figure 1. Classification of oil shales. Adapted from Hutton
(1987).
Terrestrial oil shales include those composed of lipid-rich
organic matter such as resin spores, waxy cuticles, and corky
tissue of roots, and stems of vascular terrestrial plants com-
monly found in coal-forming swamps and bogs. Lacustrine
oil shales include lipid-rich organic matter derived from algae
that lived in freshwater, brackish, or saline lakes. Marine oil
shales are composed of lipid-rich organic matter derived from
marine algae, acritarchs (unicellular organisms of questionable
origin), and marine dinoflagellates.
Several quantitatively important petrographic components
of the organic matter in oil shaletelalginite, lamalginite, and
bituminiteare adapted from coal petrography. Telalginite
is organic matter derived from large colonial or thick-walled
unicellular algae, typified by genera such as Botryococcus.
Lamalginite includes thin-walled colonial or unicellular algae
that occurs as laminae with little or no recognizable biologic
structures. Telalginite and lamalginite fluoresce brightly in
shades of yellow under blue/ultraviolet light.
Bituminite, on the other hand, is largely amorphous,
lacks recognizable biologic structures, and weakly fluoresces
under blue light. It commonly occurs as an organic ground-
mass with fine-grained mineral matter. The material has not
Organic-rich
sedimentary
rocks
Bitumen-
impregnated
rocks
Terrestrial
oil shale
Lacustrine
oil shale
Cannel coal
Marine
oil shale
Humic
coals
Oil
shales
Lamosite
Torbanite
Kukersite
Tasmanite
Marinite
Evaluation of Oil-Shale Resources
Relatively little is known about many of the worlds
deposits of oil shale and much exploratory drilling and analyti-
cal work need to be done. Early attempts to determine the total
size of world oil-shale resources were based on few facts, and
estimating the grade and quantity of many of these resources
were speculative, at best. The situation today has not greatly
improved, although much information has been published
in the past decade or so, notably for deposits in Australia,
Canada, Estonia, Israel, and the United States.
Evaluation of world oil-shale resources is especially
difficult because of the wide variety of analytical units that
are reported. The grade of a deposit is variously expressed in
U.S. or Imperial gallons of shale oil per short ton (gpt) of rock,
liters of shale oil per metric ton (l/t) of rock, barrels, short or
metric tons of shale oil, kilocalories per kilogram (kcal/kg) of
oil shale, or gigajoules (GJ) per unit weight of oil shale. To
bring some uniformity into this assessment, oil-shale resources
in this report are given in both metric tons of shale oil and in
equivalent U.S. barrels of shale oil, and the grade of oil shale,
where known, is expressed in liters of shale oil per metric ton
(l/t) of rock. If the size of the resource is expressed only in
volumetric units (barrels, liters, cubic meters, and so on), the
density of the shale oil must be known or estimated to convert
these values to metric tons. Most oil shales produce shale oil
that ranges in density from about 0.85 to 0.97 by the modified
Fischer assay method. In cases where the density of the shale
oil is unknown, a value of 0.910 is assumed for estimating
resources.
Byproducts may add considerable value to some oil-
shale deposits. Uranium, vanadium, zinc, alumina, phosphate,
sodium carbonate minerals, ammonium sulfate, and sulfur
are some of the potential byproducts. The spent shale after
retorting is used to manufacture cement, notably in Germany
and China. The heat energy obtained by the combustion of
the organic matter in oil shale can be used in the cement-mak-
ing process. Other products that can be made from oil shale
include specialty carbon fibers, adsorbent carbons, carbon
black, bricks, construction and decorative blocks, soil addi-
tives, fertilizers, rock wool insulating material, and glass.
Most of these uses are still small or in experimental stages,
but the economic potential is large.
This appraisal of world oil-shale resources is far from
complete. Many deposits are not reviewed because data or
publications are unavailable. Resource data for deeply buried
deposits, such as a large part of the Devonian oil-shale depos-
its in eastern United States, are omitted, because they are not
likely to be developed in the foreseeable future. Thus, the total
resource numbers reported herein should be regarded as con-
servative estimates. This review focuses on the larger deposits
of oil shale that are being mined or have the best potential for
development because of their size and grade.
Australia
The oil-shale deposits of Australia range from small and
noneconomic to deposits large enough for commercial devel-
opment. The demonstrated oil-shale resources of Australia
total 58 billion tons, from which about 3.1 billion tons of oil
(24 billion barrels) is recoverable (Crisp and others, 1987,
p. 1) (table 1).
Australian oil-shale deposits range in age from Cambrian
to Tertiary and are diverse in origin. The deposits are located
in the eastern one-third of the country, including Queensland,
New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania
(fig. 2). The deposits having the best potential for economic
development are those located in Queensland and include the
lacustrine Rundle, Stuart, and Condor deposits of Tertiary age.
The marine Toolebuc oil shale of Early Cretaceous age occu-
pies a large area mostly in Queensland. The torbanite deposits
at Joadja Creek and Glen Davis in New South Wales and the
tasmanite deposits in Tasmania were mined for shale oil in the
last half of the 1800s and into the early 1900s. The remaining
resources of these high-grade deposits are not commercially
important (Alfredson, 1985, p. 162). Some of the colorful
history of the oil-shale operations at Joadja Creek is described
by Knapman (1988). Glen Davis, which closed in 1952, was
the last oil-shale operation in Australia until the Stuart Project
began operations in the late 1990s. About 4 million tons of
oil shale were mined in Australia between 1860 and 1952
(Crisp and others, 1987, their fig. 2).
Torbanite
Much of the early production of oil shale in Australia
was from the torbanite deposits of New South Wales. As many
as 16 deposits were exploited between the 1860s and 1960s.
During the early years of mining, torbanite was used for gas
enrichment in Australia and overseas, but paraffin, kerosene,
and wood preserving and lubricating oils were also produced.
Later, in the 1900s, torbanite was used to produce gasoline.
Although the torbanite assayed as high as 480 to 600 l/t, the
average feed to the retort was probably about 220 to 250 l/t.
Of 30 deposits in New South Wales, 16 were commercially
exploited (Crisp and others, 1987, p. 6).
Two small deposits of torbanite have been investigated
in Queensland. These include the small but high-grade Alpha
deposit, which constitutes a potential in-situ resource of
19 million U.S. barrels (Noon, 1984, p. 4) and a smaller
deposit at Carnarvon Creek.
Tasmanite
Several companies attempted to develop the marine tas-
manite deposits of Permian age in Tasmania during the early
1900s. Between 1910 and 1932, a total of 1,100 m
3
(about
7,600 barrels) of shale oil was produced from several
Australia 5
Table 1. Demonstrated resources of oil-shale deposits in Australia (from Crisp and others, 1987, their table 1).
[ton, metric ton; l/t, liters per metric ton of rock; km, kilometer; m, meter; bbl, U.S. barrel]
Deposit Age In-situ oil
(10
6
tons)
Yield
(l/t)
Area
(km
2
)
Recoverable oil
(10
6
m
3
) (10
6
bbls)
Queensland
Alpha Tertiary 17 200+ 10 13 80
Condor do 17,000 65 60 1,100 6,700
Duaringa do 10,000 82 720 590 3,700
Julia Creek Cretaceous 4,000 70 250 270 1,700
Lowmead Tertiary 1,800 84 25 120 740
Nagoorin do 6,300 90 24 420 2,700
Nagoorin South do 1,300 78 18 74 470
Rundle do 5,000 105 25 420 2,700
Stuart do 5,200 94 32 400 2,500
Yaamba do 6,100 95 32 440 2,800
New South Wales
Baerami Permian 11 260 -- 3 17
Glen Davis do 6 420 -- 4 23
Tasmania
Mersey River do 55 120 -- 8 48
Totals 57,000 3,900 24,000
intermittent operations. Further developments are unlikely
unless new resources are found (Crisp and others, 1987,
p. 78).
Toolebuc Oil Shale
Oil shale in the marine Toolebuc Formation of Early
Cretaceous age underlies about 484,000 km
2
in parts of the
Eromanga and Carpenteria Basins in Queensland and adjacent
States (fig. 2). The oil-shale zone ranges from 6.5 to 7.5 m
in thickness but yields on average only about 37 l/t, making
it a low-grade resource. However, the Toolebuc Formation
is estimated to contain 245 billion m
3
(~1.7 trillion barrels)
of in-situ shale oil. Excluding weathered oil shale from the
surface to a depth of 50 m, about 20 percent (49 billion m
3

or 340 billion barrels) of the shale-oil resource between the
depths of 50 to 200 m could be produced by open-pit mining
(Ozimic and Saxby, 1983, p. 1). The oil shale also contains
potential resources of uranium and vanadium. One of the more
favorable localities for oil-shale development is near Julia
Creek, where the Toolebuc oil shale is near the surface and is
amenable to open-pit mining. The resources of shale oil in the
Toolebuc Formation suitable for open-pit mining total 1.5 bil-
lion U.S. barrels, but the oil shale is too low grade for develop-
ment at present (Noon, 1984, p. 5).
The organic matter of the Toolebuc oil shale is composed
largely of bituminite, liptodetrinite, and lamalginite (Hutton,
1988, p. 210; Sherwood and Cook, 1983, p. 36). The atomic
hydrogen to carbon (H/C) ratio of the organic matter is about
1.1 0.2 with high aromaticity (>50 percent). Only 25 percent
of the organic matter converts to oil by conventional retorting
(Ozimic and Saxby, 1983).
Eastern Queensland
As a result of the increase in the price of crude oil related
to the oil crisis of 197374, exploration for oil shale in Aus-
tralia was greatly accelerated. Several companies identified
or confirmed sizable resources of oil shale at Rundle, Condor,
Duaringa, Stuart, Byfield, Mt. Coolon, Nagoorin, and Yaamba
in eastern Queensland during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
However, by 1986, the prices of crude oil dropped dramati-
cally, and interest in the exploitation of oil shale diminished
(Crisp and others, 1987, p. 9).
Nine Tertiary oil-shale deposits in eastern Queensland
have been investigated by exploratory core drillingByfield,
Condor, Duaringa, Lowmead, Nagoorin, Nagoorin South,
Rundle, Stuart, and Yaamba (fig. 2). Most of these deposits are
lamosites that were deposited in freshwater lakes located in
grabens, commonly in association with coal-forming swamps.
Figure 2. Deposits of oil shale in Australia. From Crisp and others (1987, their fig. 1). Area of Toolebuc oil shale from Cook and
Sherwood (1989, their fig. 2).
N
Perth
Adelaide
Tasmania
Victoria
New South
Wales
South
Australia
Western
Australia
Northern
Territory
Queensland
Sidney
Melbourne
Brisbane
Darwin
EXPLANATION
Cannel coal
Torbanite
Lamosite
Marinite
Tasmanite
Probable area of oil
shale within the
Toolebuc Formation
0 300 600 900 KILOMETERS
Mersey River
Camooweal
Julia Creek
Mt. Coolon
Alpha
Yaamba
Byfield
Rundle
Stuart
Lowmead
Nagoorin
Duaringa
Nagoorin
South
Condor
Glen
Davis
Joadja
Morwell
The
Coorong
The mineral fraction is typically composed of quartz and clay
minerals with lesser amounts of siderite, carbonate minerals,
and pyrite. The sizes of the deposits range from 1 to
17.4 billion tons of in-situ shale oil with cutoff grades of
around 50 l/t. Three of the largest deposits are Condor
(17.4 billion tons), Nagoorin (6.3 billion tons), and Rundle
(5.0 billion tons) (Crisp and others, 1987).
The Stuart oil-shale deposit, estimated to contain 3
billion barrels of in-situ shale oil, is under development by the
Southern Pacific Petroleum (SPP) and Central Pacific Minerals
(CPM) companies. As of February 2003, 1.16 million tons of
oil shale were mined by open pit from which 702,000 barrels
of shale oil were recovered by the Taciuk retorting process.
Shale-oil production runs during 87 days of operation from
September 20, 2003, to January 19, 2004, peaked at 3,700
barrels per day and averaged 3,083 barrels per day (SSP/CPM
Dec. 2003 Quarterly Report, January 21, 2004). The Stuart
operation shut down in October 2004 for further evaluation.
Australia 7
Brazil
At least nine deposits of oil shale ranging from Devo-
nian to Tertiary age have been reported in different parts of
Brazil (Padula, 1969). Of these, two deposits have received the
most interest: (1) the lacustrine oil shale of Tertiary age in the
Paraba Valley in the State of So Paulo northeast of the city of
So Paulo; and (2) the oil shale of the Permian Irat Formation,
a widespread unit in the southern part of the country (fig. 3).
Paraba Valley
Two areas in Paraba Valley totaling 86 km
2
contain a
reserve of 840 million barrels of in-situ shale oil as determined
by drilling. The total resource is estimated at 2 billion bar-
rels. The unit of interest, which is 45 m thick, includes several
types of oil shale: (1) brown to dark brown fossiliferous
laminated paper shale that contains 8.5 to 13 weight percent
oil equivalent, (2) semipapery oil shale of the same color
containing 3 to 9 weight percent oil equivalent, and (3) dark
olive, sparsely fossiliferous, low-grade oil shale that fractures
semi-conchoidally.
Irat Formation
Oil shale of the Permian Irat Formation has the greatest
potential for economic development because of its accessibil-
ity, grade, and widespread distribution. The Irat Formation
crops out in the northeastern part of the State of So Paulo
and extends southward for 1,700 km to the southern border of
Figure 3. Deposits of oil shale in Brazil. From Padula (1969, his fig. 1).
1
1
1
7
2
2
3
4
5
8
6
9
9
0 300 600 KILOMETERS
1. Marine oil shale of Devonian age
2. Cretaceous oil shale
7. Oil shale of unknown age
8. Oil shale of unknown age
Oil-shale occurrences
ALAGOAS
RORAIMA
AMAZONAS
PARA
MATO GRASSO
RONDONIA
ACRE
SERGIPE
BAHIA
MINAS GERAIS
E. SANTO
GOIAS
SAO PAULO
GUANABARA
PARANA
Sao Mateus do Sul
MARANHAO
CEARA
PIAUI
AMAPA
PARAIBA
R.G.
NORTE
PERNAMBUCO
S.
CATARINA
RIO GRANDE
DO SUL
Sao
Gabriel
N
EXPLANATION
6. Lacustrine oil shale of Tertiary age
of Paraiba Valley near Sao Paulo
~
~
~
~
9. Permian oil shale of the Irat
Formation (outcrop shown
by solid line)

Rio Grande do Sul into northern Uruguay (fig. 3). The total
area underlain by the Irat Formation is unknown because the
western part of the deposit is covered by lava flows.
In the State of Rio Grande do Sul, the oil shale is in two
beds separated by 12 m of shale and limestone. The beds are
thickest in the vicinity of So Gabriel, where the upper bed is
9 m thick and thins to the south and east, and the lower bed is
4.5 m thick and also thins to the south. In the State of Paran,
in the vicinity of So Mateus do Sul-Irat, the upper and lower
oil-shale beds are 6.5 and 3.2 m thick, respectively (fig. 4). In
the State of So Paulo and part of Santa Catarina, there are as
many as 80 beds of oil shale, each ranging from a few mil-
limeters to several meters in thickness, which are distributed
irregularly through a sequence of limestone and dolomite.
Figure 4. Typical lithologic log and shale-oil yield of the First and Second beds of the Irat
oil shale at So Mateus do Sul, Brazil. From L. Carta, Petrobras (1985, unpublished data).
FIRST BED
SECOND BED
2 4 6 8 10
Shale-oil yield, weight percent
2 4 6 8 10
Shale-oil yield, weight percent
12 14
20
Depth
in
meters
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
OIL SHALE
BARREN SHALE
LIMESTONE
Core drilling outlined an area of about 82 km
2
that
contains an oil-shale reserve of more than 600 million bar-
rels (about 86 million tons) of shale-oil equivalent, or about
7.3 million barrels/km
2
near So Mateus do Sul in southern
Paran. In the San Gabriel and Dom Pedrito areas of Rio
Grande do Sul, the lower bed yields about 7 weight percent
shale oil and contains similar resources, but the upper bed
yields only 23 percent oil and is not considered suitable for
exploitation (Padula, 1969).
The Irat oil shale is dark gray, brown, and black,
very fine grained, and laminated. Clay minerals compose
6070 percent of the rock and organic matter makes up much
of the remainder, with minor contributions of detrital quartz,
feldspar, pyrite, and other minerals. Carbonate minerals are
Brazil 9
Canada
Canadas oil-shale deposits range from Ordovician to
Cretaceous age and include deposits of lacustrine and marine
origin; as many as 19 deposits have been identified (Macau-
ley, 1981; Davies and Nassichuk, 1988) (fig. 5 and table 3).
During the 1980s, a number of the deposits were explored by
core drilling (Macauley, 1981, 1984a, 1984b; Macauley and
others, 1985; Smith and Naylor, 1990). Investigations included
geologic studies, Rock-Eval and X-ray diffraction analyses,
organic petrology, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry
of the shale oil, and hydroretorting analyses.
The oil shales of the New Brunswick Albert Formation,
lamosites of Mississippian age, have the greatest potential for
development (fig. 5). The Albert oil shale averages 100 l/t of
shale oil and has potential for recovery of oil and may also be
used for co-combustion with coal for electric power
generation.
Marinites, including the Devonian Kettle Point Formation
and the Ordovician Collingwood Shale of southern Ontario,
yield relatively small amounts of shale oil (about 40 l/t), but
the yield can be doubled by hydroretorting. The Cretaceous
Boyne and Favel marinites form large resources of low-grade
oil shale in the Prairie Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan,
and Alberta. Upper Cretaceous oil shales on the Anderson
Plain and the Mackenzie Delta in the Northwest Territories
have been little explored, but may be of future economic
interest.
Outcrops of Lower Carboniferous lacustrine oil shale
on Grinnell Peninsula, Devon Island, in the Canadian Arctic
Archipelago, are as much as 100 m thick and samples yield
up to 387 kilograms of shale oil per ton of rock by Rock-Eval
(equivalent to about 406 l/t). For most Canadian deposits, the
resources of in-situ shale oil remain poorly known.
New Brunswick Oil Shale
The oil-shale deposits of the lacustrine Albert Formation
of Mississippian age are located in the Moncton sub-basin
of the Fundy Basin that lies roughly between St. Johns and
Moncton in southern New Brunswick (no. 1 in fig. 6 and no. 9
of table 3). The principal part of the deposit lies at the east end
of the sub-basin at Albert Mines about 25 km south-southeast
of Moncton, where one borehole penetrated more than 500 m
of oil shale. However, complex folding and faulting obscure
the true thickness of the oil-shale beds, which may be much
thinner.
The richest part of the sequence, the Albert Mines zone,
measures about 120 m thick in one borehole, which may be
double the true stratigraphic thickness because of structural
complexity as noted above. The shale-oil yield ranges from
less than 25 to more than 150 l/t; the average specific gravity
is 0.871. Shale-oil reserves for the Albert Mines zone, which
yields an estimated 94 l/t of shale oil by Fischer assay, is
estimated at 67 million barrels. The shale-oil resource for the
Table 2. Average properties of Irat oil shale mined at
Sao Mateus do Sul (Petrobras, 1985, unpub. data).
[Wt %, weight percent; kcal/kg, kilocalories per
kilogram; l/t, liters per metric ton]
Analysis Wt %
Moisture content 5.3
Organic carbon (dry basis) 12.7
Organic hydrogen (dry basis) 1.5
Fischer assay (dry basis)
Shale oil 7.6
Water 1.7
Gas 3.2
Spent shale 87.5
Total sulfur (dry basis) 4.0
Gross heating value (dry basis,
kcal/kg)
1,480
Oil-shale feed stock (l/t) 70125
sparse. The Irat oil shale is not notably enriched in metals,

unlike marine oil shales such as the Devonian oil shales of
eastern United States. Some properties of the Irat oil shale are
given in table 2.
The origin of the Irat Formation is controversial. Some
researchers have concluded that the organic matter is derived
from a predominantly algal/microbial source in a freshwater to
brackish lacustrine environment as indicated by the geochem-
istry of the shale oil (Afonso and others, 1994). On the other
hand, Padula (1969), quoting earlier researchers, hypothesizes
that the organic-rich sediments were deposited in a partially
enclosed intracontinental marine (Paran) basin of reduced
salinity that was in communication with the open sea. The
basin formed after the close of Late Carboniferous glaciation.
Hutton (1988) classified the Irat oil shale as a marine oil shale
(marinite).
Development of the Brazilian oil-shale industry began
with the establishment of the Brazilian national oil company,
Petrobras, in 1954. A division of that company, Superinten-
dncia da Industrializao do Xisto (SIX), was charged with
the development of the oil-shale deposits. Early work concen-
trated on the Paraba oil shale, but later focused on the Irat
shale. A prototype oil-shale retort and UPI (Usina Prototipo
do Irat) plant constructed near So Mateus do Sul (fig. 3)
began operations in 1972 with a design capacity of 1,600 tons
of oil shale per day. In 1991 an industrial-size retort, 11 m
in diameter, was put into operation with a design capacity of
about 550 tons (~3,800 barrels) of shale oil per day. More than
1.5 million tons (~10.4 million barrels) of shale oil and other
products including liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), methane,
and sulfur have been produced from startup of the UPI plant
through 1998.
entire oil-shale sequence is estimated at 270 million barrels
(Macauley and others, 1984), or about 37 million tons of
shale oil.
The oil shale consists of interbedded dolomitic marl-
stone, laminated marlstone, and clayey marlstone. The mineral
matrix is composed of dolomite, local calcite, and minor
siderite with quartz, feldspar, some analcime, abundant illite,
and minor amounts of smectite. The presence of dolomite and
analcime, as well as the presence of overlying beds of halite,
indicates that the oil shale was probably deposited in an alka-
line saline lake.
The first commercial development was of a single vein
of albertite, a solid hydrocarbon cutting across the oil-shale
deposits, that was mined from 1863 to 1874 to a depth of
335 m. During that period, 140,000 tons of albertite were sold
in the U.S. for $18/ton. A 41-ton sample sent to England in
the early 1900s yielded 420 l/t and 450 m
3
of methane gas/ton
of albertite. In 1942 the Canadian Department of Mines and
Resources initiated a core-drilling program to test the deposit.
A total of 79 boreholes were drilled and a resource of 91 mil-
lion tons of oil shale above a depth of 122 m was estimated.
The grade of the oil shale averaged 44.2 l/t. An additional
10 boreholes were drilled by Atlantic-Richfield Company in
196768 to test the deeper oil shales, and still further explora-
tion drilling was carried out by Canadian Occidental Petro-
leum, Ltd. in 1976 (Macauley, 1981).
Figure 5. Oil-shale deposits in Canada. Numbered deposits are keyed to table 3. Adapted from Macauley (1981). Areas in blue are
lakes
Alberta
Victoria
Island
Winnipeg
Calgary
Edmonton
British
Columbia
Manitoba
Ontario
Northwest Territories
Yukon
Territory
Alaska
United States
Quebec
Newfoundland
S
a
s
k
a
t
c
h
e
w
a
n
8
2
6
9
10
13
Nova Scotia
11
12
1
3
Southhampton
Island
4
5
7
17
18
14
15
New Brunswick
Prince
Edward
Is.
Nunavut
N
Ellesmere
Island
19
Devon Is.
Regina
16
Hudson
Bay
B
a
ffin
Is
la
n
d
0 200 400 600 800 KILOMETERS
Canada 11
Table 3. Oil-shale deposits in Canada.
No. on
figure 5
Deposit Geologic
unit
Age Oil-shale
type
Thickness
(meters)
Grade
(liters/ton)
1 Manitoulin-Collingwood
trend, Ontario
Collingwood
Shale
Ordovician Marinite 26 <40
2 Ottawa area, Ontario Billings Shale Ordovician Marinite Unknown
3 Southhampton Island,
Northwest Territories
Collingwood Shale
equivalent (?)
Ordovician Marinite Unknown
4 North shore of Lake Erie,
Elgin and Norfold Counties,
Ontario
Marcellus
Formation
Devonian Marinite Probably
low
5 Norman Wells area, Northwest
Territories
Canol Formation Devonian Marinite 100 Unknown
6 Gasp Peninsula, Quebec York River Formation Devonian Marinite Unknown
7 Windsor-Sarnia area, south-
west Ontario
Kettle Point Formation Devonian Marinite 10 41
8 Moose River Basin, Ontario Long Rapids Formation Devonian Marinite Unknown
9 Moncton sub-basin, New
Brunswick
Albert Formation Carboniferous Lamosite 15360 3595
10 Antigonish Basin, Nova Scotia Horton Group Carboniferous Lamosite 60125 59
11 Deer Lake, Humber Valley,
Newfoundland
Deer Lake Group Carboniferous Lamosite <2 15146
12 Conche area, Newfoundland Cape Rouge Formation Early
Mississippian
Torbanite? Unknown
13 Stellarton Basin, Pictou
County, Nova Scotia
Pictou Group Pennsylvanian Torbanite and
lamosite
<535
(in 60 beds)
25140
14 Queen Charlotte Islands, Brit-
ish Columbia
Kunga Formation Jurassic Marinite 35 35
15 Cariboo district, British
Columbia
? Early Jurassic Marinite? Minor oil
yields
16 Manitoba Escarpment,
Manitoba and Saskatchewan
Boyne and Favel For-
mations
Cretaceous Marinite 40 and 30,
respectively
2060
17 Anderson Plain, Northwest
Territories
Smoking Hills Forma-
tion
Late
Cretaceous
Marinite 30 >40
18 Mackenzie Delta, Northwest
and Yukon Territories
Boundary Creek For-
mation
Late
Cretaceous
Marinite Unknown
19 Grinnell Peninsula, Devon
Island, Nunavut
Emma Fiord Formation Mississippian Lacustrine:
lamosite?
>100 11406
Figure 6. Oil-shale deposits in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Adapted from Kalkreuth and
Macauley (1987, their fig. 1).
B
A
S
I
N
64 W 60 W 56 W
64W 60W 56W
46N 46N
48N 48N
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
NEW
BRUNSWICK
NOVA SCOTIA
PRINCE EDWARD
ISLAND
GULF OF
ST. LAWRENCE
CAPE BRETON
ISLAND
OIL SHALE AREAS
1. MONCTON SUB-BASIN (Albert Mines)
2. ANTIGONISH (Big Marsh)
3. CONCHE
4. DEER LAKE
5. PICTOU (Stellarton)
NEWFOUNDLAND
0 200 400 KILOMETERS
St John
F
U
N
D
Y
St John's
2
5
1
Moncton
4
3
China
Two of Chinas principal resources of oil shale are those
at Fushun and Maoming. The first commercial production
of shale oil began at Fushun in 1930 with the construction
of Refinery No. 1; this was followed by Refinery No. 2,
which began production in 1954, and a third facility that began
producing shale oil at Maoming in 1963. The three plants
eventually switched from shale oil to the refining of cheaper
crude oil. A new plant for retorting oil shale was constructed
at Fushun, with production beginning in 1992. Sixty Fushun-
type retorts, each having a capacity of 100 tons of oil shale per
day, produce 60,000 tons (about 415,000 bbls) of shale oil per
year at Fushun (Chilin, 1995).
Fushun
The Fushun oil-shale and coal deposit of Eocene age is
located in northeastern China just south of the town of Fushun
in Liaoning Province. Coal and oil shale are in a small outlier
of Mesozoic and Tertiary sedimentary and volcanic rocks
underlain by Precambrian granitic gneiss (Johnson, 1990). In
this area, subbituminous to bituminous coal, carbonaceous
mudstone and shale, and lenses of sandstone compose the
Guchengzi Formation of Eocene age. The formation ranges
from 20 to 145 m and averages 55 m in thickness. In the West
Open Pit coal mine near Fushun, 6 coal beds are present, as
well as a cannel coal 1 to 15 m thick that is used for decorative
carving. The coal contains red to yellow gem-quality amber.
Overlying the Guchengzi Formation is the Eocene Jijun-
tun Formation that consists of oil shale of lacustrine origin.
The oil shale is in gradational contact both with the underlying
coal of the Guchengzi Formation and with the overlying lacus-
trine green mudstone of the Xilutian Formation (fig. 7). The
Jijuntun Formation, which ranges from 48 to 190 m in thick-
ness, is well exposed in the main West Open Pit coal mine
where it is 115 m thick. The lower 15 m consists of low-grade
light-brown oil shale and the remaining upper 100 m consists
of richer grade brown to dark brown, finely laminated oil shale
in beds of thin to medium thickness.
The oil shale contains abundant megafossils of fern, pine,
oak, cypress, ginkgo, and sumac. Small fossil mollusks and
crustaceans (ostracodes) are also present. The gradational
contact between the oil shale and underlying coal indicates
a depositional environment of an interior paludal basin that
gradually subsided and was replaced by a lake in which the oil
shale was deposited (Johnson, 1990, p. 227).
China 13
Figure 7. Geologic cross section (A) and stratigraphic section (B) of the Fushun oil-shale
deposit, Liaoning Province, China. From Johnson (1990, his figs. 4 and 6).
B. Generalized stratigraphic section (no scale).
Green mudstone
Oil shale
Coal
Xilutian
Guchengzi
Lizigou
Laohutai
Sandstone
Basalt
Brown shale
LITHOLOGY
Gengjiajie
T
e
r
t
i
a
r
y
GROUP/
FORMATION
Tuff
Longfengkan
F
u
s
h
u
n

G
r
o
u
p
E
o
c
e
n
e
P
a
l
e
o
c
e
n
e
AGE
C
r
e
t
a
c
e
o
u
s
A. North-south stratigraphic cross section through the West Open Pit
coal mine (no vertical scale).
Xilutian Formation
Jijuntun Formation
Guchengzi Formation
Lizigou Formation
Laohutai Formation
Longfengkan Formation
0.5 km
Tla
Tla
Tx
Tj
Tli
Tla
Tlo
Tj
Tli
Tli
Tx
Tlo
Tg
Tg
The oil yield of the shale ranges from about 4.7 to
16 percent by weight of the rock, and the mined shale averages
7 to 8 percent (~7889 l/t) oil. In the vicinity of the mine, oil-
shale resources are estimated at 260 million tons, of which
235 million tons (90 percent) are considered mineable. The
total resource of oil shale at Fushun is estimated at
3,600 million tons.
The West Open Pit mine is located in a tightly folded
syncline (fig. 7) that trends east-west and is cut by several
compressional and tensional faults. The pit is about 6.6 km
long in an east-west direction, 2.0 km wide, and 300 m deep at
the west end. In addition, two underground mines lie just east
of the open-pit mine. The floor of the open-pit mine is on the
south limb of the syncline and dips 2245 to the north toward
the fold axis. The overturned north flank of the syncline is
bounded by an east-west thrust fault that places sandstone of
the Cretaceous Longfengkan Formation in contact with the
Jijuntun oil shale (fig. 7).
Coal mining at Fushun began about 1901. Production
increased, first under the Russians and later under the
Japanese, reaching a peak in 1945, then dropped sharply and
remained low until 1953 when production increased again
under the first 5-year plan of the Peoples Republic of China.
For the first 10 to 15 years of mining coal at Fushun,
oil shale was discarded with the overburden. Production of
oil shale began in 1926 under the Japanese and peaked in the
early 1970s with about 60 million tons of oil shale mined
annually then dropped to about 8 million tons in 1978. This
reduction was partly due to increased discovery and produc-
tion of cheaper crude oil within China. Baker and Hook (1979)
have published additional details on oil-shale processing at
Fushun.
Maoming
The Maoming oil-shale deposit, of Tertiary age, is 50 km
long, 10 km wide, and 20 to 25 m thick. Total reserves of oil
shale are 5 billion tons, of which 860 million tons are in the
Jintang mine. The Fischer assay yield of the oil shale is 4 to
12 percent and averages 6.5 percent. The ore is yellow brown
and the bulk density is about 1.85. The oil shale contains 72.1
percent ash, 10.8 percent moisture, 1.2 percent sulfur, with a
heating value of 1,745 kcal/kg (dry basis). About 3.5 million
tons of oil shale are mined yearly (Guo-Quan, 1988). The
8-mm fraction has a heating value of 1,158 kcal/kg and a
moisture content of 16.3 percent. It cannot be retorted but is
being tested for burning in a fluidized bed boiler. Cement is
manufactured with a content of about 15 to 25 percent of the
oil-shale ash.
Estonia
The Ordovician kukersite deposits of Estonia have been
known since the 1700s. However, active exploration only
began as a result of fuel shortages brought on by World War
I. Full-scale mining began in 1918. Oil-shale production in
that year was 17,000 tons by open-pit mining, and by 1940,
the annual production reached 1.7 million tons. However, it
was not until after World War II, during the Soviet era, that
production climbed dramatically, peaking in 1980 when 31.4
million tons of oil shale were mined from eleven open-pit and
underground mines.
The annual production of oil shale decreased after 1980
to about 14 million tons in 199495 (Katti and Lokk, 1998;
Reinsalu, 1998a) then began to increase again. In 1997,
22 million tons of oil shale were produced from six room-
and-pillar underground mines and three open-pit mines
(Opik, 1998). Of this amount, 81 percent was used to fuel
electric power plants, 16 percent was processed into petro-
chemicals, and the remainder was used to manufacture cement
as well as other minor products. State subsidies for oil-shale
companies in 1997 amounted to 132.4 million Estonian kroons
(9.7 million U.S. dollars) (Reinsalu, 1998a).
The kukersite deposits occupy more than 50,000 km
2
in
northern Estonia (the Estonia deposit, fig. 8) and extend east-
ward into Russia toward St. Petersburg where it is known as
the Leningrad deposit. In Estonia a somewhat younger deposit
of kukersite, the Tapa deposit, overlies the Estonia deposit
(fig. 8).
As many as 50 beds of kukersite and kerogen-rich
limestone alternating with biomicritic limestone are in the
Krgekallas and Viivikonna Formations of Middle Ordovi-
cian age. These beds form a 20- to 30-m-thick sequence in
the middle of the Estonia field. Individual kukersite beds are
commonly 1040 cm thick and reach as much as 2.4 m. The
organic content of the richest kukersite beds reaches 4045
weight percent (Bauert, 1994).
Rock-Eval analyses of the richest-grade kukersite in
Estonia show oil yields as high as 300 to 470 mg/g of shale,
which is equivalent to about 320 to 500 l/t. The calorific value
in seven open-pit mines ranges from 2,440 to 3,020 kcal/kg
(Reinsalu, 1998a, his table 5). Most of the organic matter is
derived from the fossil green alga, Gloeocapsomorpha prisca,
which has affinities to the modern cyanobacterium, Entophy-
salis major, an extant species that forms algal mats in inter-
tidal to very shallow subtidal waters (Bauert, 1994).
Matrix minerals in Estonian kukersite and interbedded
limestones includes dominantly low-Mg calcite (>50 percent),
dolomite (<1015 percent), and siliciclastic minerals including
quartz, feldspars, illite, chlorite, and pyrite (<1015 percent).
The kukersite beds and associated limestones are evidently not
enriched in heavy metals, unlike the Lower Ordovician Dic-
tyonema Shale of northern Estonia and Sweden (Bauert, 1994;
Andersson and others, 1985).
Bauert (1994, p. 418420) suggested that the kukersite
and limestone sequence was deposited in a series of east-west
stacked belts in a shallow subtidal marine basin adjacent to
a shallow coastal area on the north side of the Baltic Sea near
Finland. The abundance of marine macrofossils and low pyrite
content indicate an oxygenated-water setting with negligible
Estonia 15
Figure 8. Location and stratigraphic section of the kukersite deposits in northern Estonia and Russia.
Adapted from Kattai and Lokk (1998, their fig. 1) and Bauert (1994, his fig. 3).
Tapa deposit
Numbered or lettered kukersite
bed or kerogen-rich limestone
Limestone with low or little
organic matter
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
M
e
m
b
e
r
F
o
r
m
a
t
i
o
n
A
g
e

M
I
D
D
L
E

O
R
D
O
V
I
C
I
A
N
P
E
E
T
R
I
M
A
I
D
L
A
V
I
I
V
I
K
O
N
N
A
TAPA DEPOSIT
T
A
T
R
U
S
E
Lithology
x
c-d
b
g-h
A
B-C
D-F
G
H
K
I
V
I
L
I
K
R
G
E
K
A
L
L
A
S
ESTONIA DEPOSIT
N
Narva
Kohtla-Jarve
Tallinn
Tapa
Gulf of Finland
Leningrad
deposit
R
U
S
S
I
A
Lake Peipsi
Rakvere
Sillamae
Estonia deposit
Estonian power
plant
Baltic power
plant
B
a
ltic
S
e
a
24E 26E 28E
59N
bottom currents as evidenced by widespread lateral continuity
of uniformly thin beds of kukersite.
Kattai and Lokk (1998, p. 109) estimated the proved and
probable reserves of kukersite to be 5.94 billion tons. A good
review of the criteria for estimating Estonias resources of
kukersite oil shale was made by Reinsalu (1998b). In addition
to thickness of overburden and thickness and grade of the oil
shale, Reinsalu defined a given bed of kukersite as constitut-
ing a reserve, if the cost of mining and delivering the oil shale
to the consumer was less than the cost of the delivery of the
equivalent amount of coal having an energy value of
7,000 kcal/kg. He defined a bed of kukersite as a resource as
one having an energy rating exceeding 25 GJ/m
2
of bed area.
On this basis, the total resources of Estonian kukersite in beds
A through F (fig. 8) are estimated to be 6.3 billion tons, which
includes 2 billion tons of active reserves (defined as oil shale
worth mining). The Tapa deposit is not included in these
estimates.
The number of exploratory drill holes in the Estonia field
exceeds 10,000. The Estonia kukersite has been relatively
thoroughly explored, whereas the Tapa deposit is currently in
the prospecting stage.
Dictyonema Shale
Another older oil-shale deposit, the marine Dictyonema
Shale of Early Ordovician age, underlies most of northern
Estonia. Until recently, little has been published about this unit
because it was covertly mined for uranium during the Soviet
era. The unit ranges from less than 0.5 to more than 5 m in
thickness (fig. 9). A total of 22.5 tons of elemental uranium
was produced from 271,575 tons of Dictyonema Shale from
an underground mine near Sillame. The uranium (U
3
O
8
)
was extracted from the ore in a processing plant at Sillame
(Lippmaa and Marame, 1999, 2000, 2001).
The future of oil-shale mining in Estonia faces a number
of problems including competition from natural gas, petro-
leum, and coal. The present open-pit mines in the kukersite
deposits will eventually need to be converted to more expen-
sive underground operations as the deeper oil shale is mined.
Serious air and ground-water pollution have resulted from
burning oil shale and leaching of trace metals and organic
compounds from spoil piles left from many years of mining
and processing the oil shales. Reclamation of mined-out areas
and their associated piles of spent shale, and studies to ame-
liorate the environmental degradation of the mined lands by
the oil-shale industry are underway. The geology, mining, and
reclamation of the Estonia kukersite deposit were reviewed in
detail by Kattai and others (2000).
Israel
Twenty marinite deposits of Late Cretaceous age have
been identified in Israel (fig. 10; Minster, 1994), containing
about 12 billion tons of oil-shale reserves with an average
heating value of 1,150 kcal/kg of rock and an average oil yield
of 6 weight percent. Thicknesses ranging from 35 to 80 m
were reported by Fainberg in Kogerman (1996, p. 263) and
5 to 200 m by PAMA, Ltd. (2000?) (table 4). The organic
content of the oil shales is relatively low, ranging from 6 to
17 weight percent, with an oil yield of only 60 to 71 l/t. The
moisture content is high (~20 percent) as is the carbonate
content (45 to 70 percent calcite) and the sulfur content (5 to
7 weight percent) (Minster, 1994). Some of the deposits can be
mined by open-pit methods. A commercially exploitable bed
of phosphate rock, 8 to 15 m thick, underlies the oil shale in
the Mishor Rotem open-pit mine.
Utilizing oil shale from the Rotem-Yamin deposit
(deposits 10 and 11 in fig. 10), about 55 tons of oil shale per
Table 4. Characteristics of 10 deposits of oil shale in Israel. Data from PAMA, Ltd. (2000?).
Deposit Overburden
thickness
(meters)
Oil-shale
thickness
(meters)
Percent organic
matter in
oil shale
Oil-shale
resources
(tons x 10
6
)
Nabi Musa 030 2540 1418 200
Shefela-Hartuv 2550 150200 1415.5 1,100
En Boqeq 30100 4060 15.0 200
Mishor Rotem 20150 20150 1117 2,260
Mishor Yamin 20170 20120 1018.5 5,200
Yeroham 70130 1050 16.0 200
Oron 080 1060 1521 700
Nahal Zin 550 530 1216 1,500
Zenifim 3050 1060 8.0 1,000
Sde Boker 50150 1570 1518 3,000
Israel 17
Figure 9. Isopach map of the Ordovician Dictyonema Shale in northern Estonia. From Loog and others
(1996, their fig. 1). Thickness in meters.
Gulf of Finland
B
A
L
T
I
C

S
E
A
R
U
S
S
I
A
24E 26E 28E
59N
TALLINN
ESTONIA
ERODED EDGE OF THE
DICTYONEMA SHALE
3
5
2
4
1
0
.5
5
L
a
k
e

P
e
i
p
s
i
0 10 20 30 40 50 KILOMETERS
hour were burned in a fluidized bed boiler to power a steam
turbo-generator in a 25-megawatt experimental electric power
plant operated by PAMA Company. The plant began operation
in 1989 (Fainberg and Hetsroni, 1996) but is now closed. The
grade of the Rotem oil shale is not uniform; the heating values
range from 650 to 1200 kcal/kg.
Jordan
2

Jordan has few resources of oil and gas and no com-
mercial deposits of coal. However, there are about 26 known
deposits of oil shale, some of which are large and relatively
high-grade (Jaber and others, 1997; Hamarneh, 1998, p. 2).
The eight most important of these are the Juref ed Darawish,
Sultani, Wadi Maghar, El Lajjun, Attarat Umm Ghudran,
Khan ez Zabib, Siwaga, and Wadi Thamad deposits (fig. 11).
These eight deposits are located in west central Jordan within
20 to 75 km east of the Dead Sea. The El Lajjun, Sultani, and
Juref ed Darawish have been the most extensively explored
by boreholes and many samples have been analyzed. Table 5
summarizes some of the geologic and resource data for the
eight deposits.
The Jordanian oil-shale deposits are marinites of Late
Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) to early Tertiary age. A number
of deposits are in grabens and some may prove to be parts of
larger deposits, such as the Wadi Maghar deposit that is now
considered to be the southern extension of the Attarat Umm
Ghudran deposit (fig 11). The deposits listed in table 5 are
at shallow depths, in essentially horizontal beds. As much
as 90 percent of the oil shale is amenable to open-pit mining
(Hamarneh, 1998, p. 5). The overburden consists of unconsoli-
dated gravel and silt containing some stringers of marlstone
and limestone and, in some areas, basalt. Overall, the oil
shales thicken northward toward the Yarmouk deposit near the
northern border of Jordan where the latter apparently extends
into Syria (fig. 11) and may prove to be an exceptionally large
depositunderlying several hundred square kilometers and
reaching 400 m in thickness (Tsevi Minster, 1999, written
commun.).
The oil shales in central Jordan are in the marine Chalk-
Marl unit, which is underlain by phosphatic limestone and
chert of the Phosphorite unit. The oil shales are typically
brown, gray, or black and weather to a distinctive light
bluish-gray. The moisture content of the oil shale is low (2 to
5.5 weight percent), whereas comparable deposits of oil shale
in Israel have a much higher moisture content of 10 to
24 percent (Tsevi Minster, 1999, written commun.). Calcite,
quartz, kaolinite, and apatite make up the major mineral
components of the El Lajjun oil shale (fig. 11), along with
small amounts of dolomite, feldspar, pyrite, illite, goethite, and
gypsum. The sulfur content of Jordanian oil shale ranges from
0.3 to 4.3 percent. The sulfur content of shale oil from the Jurf
ed Darawish and the Sultani deposits is high, 8 and 10 percent,
respectively. Of interest is the relatively high metal content of
2
Many of the names of the Jordanian oil-shale deposits are spelled in different ways by Jordanian and other authors, probably owing to the difficulty of
translating from Arabic to English. The names in this report are selected from several sources and not necessarily the best ones to use.
Figure 10. Deposits of oil shale in Israel. From Minster (1994, his fig. 1).
34E 35E 36E
34E 35E 36E
33N
32N
30N
33N
32N
31N 31N
30N
1. Shefar'am
2. Arbel
3. Yarmuk
4. Hadera
5. Nabi-Musa
6. Shefela-Hartuv
7. 'En Boqeq
8. Nevatim
9. Aro'er
10. Mishor Rotem
11. Mishor Yamin
12. Yeroham
13. Oron
14. Biq'at Zin
15. Shivta
16. Nahal Zin
17. Nahal Arava
18. Har Nishpe
19. Paran
20. Zenifim
21. Sde Boker
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Beer Sheva
21
EGYPT
1
2
3
4
5
Jerusalem
Tel Aviv
Haifa
JORDAN
ISRAEL
Oil-shale occurrence
Oil-shale deposit
M
E
D
I
T
E
R
R
A
N
E
A
N

S
E
A
6
D
E
A
D

S
E
A
0 10 20 30 40 50 KILOMETERS
Jordan 19
Figure 11. Oil-shale deposits in Jordan. Adapted from Jaber and others (1997,
their fig. 1) and Hamarneh (1998, his figure on p. 4).
10
36
32 32
30 30
34 34
38
38 36
N
S
A
U
D
I

A
R
A
B
I
A
OIL-SHALE DEPOSITS
1. Ma'an
2. Juref ed Darawish
3. El Hasa
4. Sultani
5. Wadi Maghar
6. El Lajjun
7. Attarat Umm Ghudran
8. Khan ez Zabib
9. Wadi Thamad
10. Yarmouk
11. Siwaga
Amman
JORDAN
SYRIA I
R
A
Q
L
E
B
A
N
O
N
M
e
d
i
t
e
r
r
a
n
e
a
n

S
e
a
ISRAEL
West
Bank
E
G
Y
P
T
D
e
a
d

S
e
a
1
2
3
4
6 7
8
9
5
11
Table 5. Resource data for eight deposits of oil shale in Jordan (from Jaber and others, 1997, their
table 1; and Hamarneh, 1998). Some data are rounded.
[km
2
, square kilometers; wt %, weight percent]
Deposit Number of
boreholes
Area
(km
2
)
Overburden
(meters)
Thickness
of oil shale
(meters)
Shale oil
(wt %)
Oil shale
(10
9
tons)
Shale oil
(10
6
tons)
El Lajjun 173 20 30 29 10.5 1.3 126
Sultani 60 24 70 32 7.5 1.0 74
Jurf ed
Darawish
50 1,500 70 31 ? 8.6 510
Attarat Umm
Ghudran
41 670 50 36 11 11 1,245
Wadi Maghar 21 19 40 40 6.8 31.6 2,150
Wadi Thamad 12 150 140200 70200 10.5 11.4 1,140
Khan ez Zabib ? 70 40 6.9 ?
Siwaga 7.0
Total 2,385 64.9+ 5,246+
the oil shales from the Jurf el Darawish, Sultani, and El Lajjun
deposits, notably Cu (68115 ppm), Ni (102167 ppm), Zn
(190649 ppm), Cr (226431 ppm), and V (101268 ppm)
(Hamarneh, 1998, p. 8). Phosphate rock underlies the El Hasa
deposit (deposit 3 in fig. 11).
Surface water for oil-shale operations is scarce in Jordan;
therefore, ground water will need to be tapped for oil-shale
operations. A shallow aquifer that underlies the El Lajjun
deposit, and provides fresh water to Amman and other munici-
palities in central Jordan, is too small in capacity to also meet
the demands of an oil-shale industry. A deeper aquifer in the
Kurnub Formation, 1,000 m below the surface, may be capable
of providing an adequate supply of water, but this and other
potential ground-water sources need further study.
Syria
Puura and others (1984) described oil shales from the
Wadi Yarmouk Basin at the southern border of Syria that are
presumably part of the Yarmouk deposit described above in
northern Jordan. The strata are marine limestones (marinites)
of Late Cretaceous to Paleogene age, consisting of carbonate
and siliceous carbonate shelf deposits that are common in the
Mediterranean area. Fossil remains constitute 10 to 15 percent
of the rock. The mineral components of the oil shales are 78
to 96 percent carbonates (mostly calcite), with small amounts
of quartz (1 to 9 percent), clay minerals (1 to 9 percent), and
apatite (2 to 19 percent). The sulfur content is 0.7 to
2.9 percent. Oil yields by Fischer assay are 7 to 12 percent.
Morocco
Oil-shale deposits have been identified at ten localities
in Morocco (fig. 12), the most important of which are Upper
Cretaceous marinites, not unlike those of Egypt, Israel, and
Jordan. The two deposits that have been explored most exten-
sively are the Timahdit and the Tarfaya deposits; about 69,000
analyses have been made of samples from 157 boreholes
totaling 34,632 m in length and from 800 m of mine workings.
The Timahdit deposit, located about 250 km southeast
of Rabat, underlies an area about 70 km long and 4 to10 km
wide within a northeast-trending syncline (fig. 12). The thick-
ness of the oil shale ranges from 80 to 170 m (fig. 13). The
moisture content ranges from 6 to 11 percent, and the sulfur
content averages 2 percent. Total oil-shale reserves are esti-
mated at 18 billion tons within an area of 196 km
2
; oil yields
range from 20 to 100 l/t and average 70 l/t.
The Tarfaya deposit is located in the southwestern-
most part of Morocco, near the border with Western Sahara
(fig. 12). The oil shale averages 22 m in thickness and its
grade averages 62 l/t. The total oil-shale resource is estimated
at 86 billion tons within a 2,000-km
2
area. The moisture
content of the Tarfaya oil shale averages 20 percent and the
sulfur content averages about 2 percent.
Phosphate rock and uranium are also associated with
the Cretaceous marinites. One drill core (location uncertain)
revealed a maximum P
2
O
5
content of about 17 percent and
U
3
0
8
concentrations of as much as about 150 ppm.
In the 1980s several energy companies from North
America and Europe conducted exploratory drilling and
experimental mining and processing of Moroccan oil shale,
but no shale oil was produced (Bouchta, 1984; Office National
de Recherches et Dexploitation Petrolieres, 1983?).
Russia
More than 80 deposits of oil shale have been identified
in Russia. The kukersite deposit in the Leningrad district
(fig. 8) is burned as fuel in the Slansky electric power plant
near St. Petersburg. In addition to the Leningrad deposit, the
best deposits for exploitation are those in the Volga-Pechersk
oil-shale province, including the Perelyub-Blagodatovsk, Kot-
sebinsk, and the Rubezhinsk deposits. These deposits contain
beds of oil shale ranging from 0.8 to 2.6 m in thickness but are
high in sulfur (46 percent, dry basis). The oil shale was used
to fuel two electric power plants; however, the operation was
shut down owing to high SO
2
emissions. As of about 1995, an
oil-shale plant at Syzran was processing not more than 50,000
tons of oil shale per year (Kashirskii, 1996).
Russell (1990) listed the resources of 13 deposits in the
former Soviet Union, including the Estonian and Leningrad
kukersite deposits and the Estonian Dictyonema Shale, at
greater than 107 billion tons of oil shale.
Sweden
The Alum Shale is a unit of black organic-rich marinite
about 2060 m thick that was deposited in a shallow marine-
shelf environment on the tectonically stable Baltoscandian
Platform in Cambrian to earliest Ordovician time in Swe-
den and adjacent areas. The Alum Shale is present in outli-
ers, partly bounded by local faults, on Precambrian rocks
in southern Sweden as well as in the tectonically disturbed
Caledonides of western Sweden and Norway, where it reaches
thicknesses of 200 m or more in repeated sequences owing to
multiple thrust faults (fig. 14).
Black shales, equivalent in part to the Alum Shale, are
present on the islands of land and Gtland, underlie parts of
the Baltic Sea, and crop out along the north shore of Estonia
where they form the Dictyonema Shale of Early Ordovician
(Tremadocian) age (Andersson and others, 1985, their figs. 3
and 4). The Alum Shale represents slow deposition in shallow,
near-anoxic waters that were little disturbed by wave- and
bottom-current action.
Sweden 21
The Cambrian and Lower Ordovician Alum Shale of
Sweden has been known for more than 350 years. It was a
source of potassium aluminum sulfate that was used in the
leather tanning industry, for fixing colors in textiles, and as a
pharmaceutical astringent. Mining the shales for alum began
in 1637 in Skne. The Alum Shale was also recognized as
a source of fossil energy and, toward the end of the 1800s,
attempts were made to extract and refine hydrocarbons
(Andersson and others, 1985, p. 89).
Before and during World War II, Alum Shale was retorted
for its oil, but production ceased in 1966 owing to the avail-
ability of cheaper supplies of crude petroleum. During this
period, about 50 million tons of shale was mined at Kinnekulle
in Vstergtland and at Nrke (fig. 14).
The Alum Shale is remarkable for its high content of met-
als including uranium, vanadium, nickel, and molybdenum.
Small amounts of vanadium were produced during World War
II. A pilot plant built at Kvarntorp produced more than 62 tons
of uranium between 1950 and 1961. Later, higher-grade ore
was identified at Ranstad in Vstergtland, where an open-pit
mine and mill were established. About 50 tons of uranium
per year were produced between 1965 and 1969. During
the 1980s, production of uranium from high-grade deposits
elsewhere in the world caused a drop in the world price of ura-
nium to levels too low to profitably operate the Ranstad plant,
and it closed in 1989 (Bergh, 1994).
Alum Shale was also burned with limestone to manu-
facture breeze blocks, a lightweight porous building block
that was used widely in the Swedish construction industry.
Production stopped when it was realized that the blocks were
radioactive and emitted unacceptably large amounts of radon.
Nevertheless, the Alum Shale remains an important potential
Figure 12. Oil-shale deposits in Morocco. From Bouchta (1984, his fig. 1).
28
32
36
28
32
36
10 6
2
10 6 2
LOCATION OF OIL-
SHALE DEPOSITS
2. Timahdit
3. Ait Oufella Basin
4. Haut Moulouya Basin
5. Bahira-Tadla Basin
6. Essaquira
7. Souss Basin
8. Oued Dades Basin
9. Tarfaya
10. Guir Basin
Tarfaya
Tangier
A
t
l
a
n
t
i
c

O
c
e
a
n
Mediterranean
Sea
Casablanca
RABAT
Marrakech
3
4
8
6
5
7
10
1
2
9
1. Tanger
Figure 13. Generalized stratigraphic section of the Timahdit oil-shale deposit in the El
Koubbat syncline, Morocco. Adapted from Office National de Recherches et Dexploitation
Petrolieres (1983?); l/t, liters per metric ton of rock; kcal/kg, kilocalories per kilogram.
0
10
20
30
40
50
Vertical
scale
(meters)
LITHOLOGY ZONE
STRATIGRAPHIC SECTION OF THE TIMAHDIT DEPOSIT IN EL KOUBBAT SYNCLINE
E
O
C
E
N
E
C
T
X
M
S
Sandstone
Limestone, lithographic
Marl, gray, calcareous,
indurated
Argillaceous marl, black,
papery; several zones of
conglomerate toward
base; about 45 m thick
Argil. marl, dark gray,
papery; conglomerate
at base; 2 m thick
Gray marl, calcareous,
about 10 m thick
Gray marl, calcareous,
phosphate nodules,
indurated, averages
62 m in thickness
Alternating layers of marl
and very well indurated
limestone
Y
ASSAY (l/t)
20 to 70
20 to 110
100 to 160
70 to 120
40 to 110
20 to 70
Kcal/kg
~1,200
>2,000
1,200 to
2,000
~1,200
M
A
A
S
T
R
I
C
H
T
I
A
N
C
R
E
T
A
C
E
O
U
S
T
E
R
T
I
A
R
Y
O
R
E

Z
O
N
E
AGE
Marl, calcareous
C
A
M
P
A
N
I
A
N
Sweden 23
Figure 14. Map showing areas (in black) of Alum Shale in Sweden. Adapted from
Andersson and others (1985, their fig. 3). Areas in blue are lakes.
8 16 24
64
68
60
56
N
AREAS OF ALUM
SHALE IN SWEDEN
2. NRKE
3. STERGTLAND
4. LAND
5. GOTLAND
6. SKNE
7. CALEDONIDES
1. VSTERGTLAND
Stockholm
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
resource of fossil and nuclear energy, sulfur, fertilizer, metal
alloy elements, and aluminum products for the future. The
fossil energy resources of the Alum Shale in Sweden are
summarized in table 6.
The organic content of Alum Shale ranges from a few
percent to more than 20 percent, being highest in the upper
part of the shale sequence (fig. 15). Oil yields, however, are
not in proportion to the organic content from one area to
another because of variations in the geothermal history of
the areas underlain by the formation. For example, at Skne
(fig. 14) and Jmtland in west-central Sweden, the Alum
Shale is overmature and oil yields are nil, although the organic
content of the shale is 1112 percent. In areas less affected by
geothermal alteration, oil yields range from 2 to 6 percent by
Fischer assay. Hydroretorting can increase the Fischer assay
yields by as much as 300 to 400 percent (Andersson and oth-
ers, 1985, their fig. 24).
The uranium resources of the Alum Shale of Sweden,
although low grade, are enormous. In the Ranstad area of
Vstergtland, for example, the uranium content of a
3.6-m-thick zone in the upper part of the formation reaches
306 ppm, and concentrations reach 2,000 to 5,000 ppm in
small black coal-like lenses of hydrocarbon (kolm) that are
scattered through the zone.
The Alum Shale in the Ranstad area underlies about
490 km
2
, of which the upper member, 8 to 9 m thick, contains
an estimated 1.7 million tons of uranium metal (Andersson
and others, 1985, their table 4). Figure 15 shows a lithologic
log of a core hole drilled at Ranstad with plots of Fischer
assays and uranium analyses.
Thailand
Lacustrine oil-shale deposits of Tertiary age are near Mae
Sot, Tak Province, and at Li, Lampoon Province. The Thai
Department of Mineral Resources has explored the Mae Sot
deposit with the drilling of many core holes. The oil shale is a
lamosite similar in some respects to the Green River oil shale
in Colorado. The Mae Sot deposit underlies about 53 km
2
in
the Mae Sot Basin in northwestern Thailand near the Myan-
mar (Burma) border. It contains an estimated 18.7 billion tons
of oil shale, which is estimated to yield 6.4 billion barrels
(916 million tons) of shale oil. The gross heating value ranges
from 287 to 3,700 kcal/kg, the moisture content ranges from
1 to 13 percent, and the sulfur content is about 1 percent.
The deposit at Li is probably also a lamosite but the reserves
are smallestimated at 15 million tons of oil shale yielding
1241 gallons of shale oil per ton of rock (50171 l/t)
(Vanichseni and others, 1988, p. 515516).
Turkey
Lacustrine oil-shale deposits of Paleocene to Eocene age
and of late Miocene age are widely distributed in middle and
western Anatolia in western Turkey. The host rocks are marl-
stone and claystone in which the organic matter is finely dis-
persed. The presence of authigenic zeolites indicates probable
deposition in hypersaline lacustrine waters in closed basins.
Data on the shale-oil resources are sparse because only
a few of the deposits have been investigated. Gle and nen
(1993) reported a total of 5.2 billion tons of oil shale in seven
deposits with their ranges in calorific values; however, the
shale-oil resources of these deposits are not reported. The oil-
shale resources of Turkey may be large, but further studies are
needed before reliable resource estimates can be made. On the
basis of available data, total resources of in-situ shale oil for
eight Turkish deposits are estimated at 284 million tons (about
2.0 billion bbls) (table 7).
United States
Numerous deposits of oil shale, ranging from Precam-
brian to Tertiary age, are present in the United States. The
two most important deposits are in the Eocene Green River
Formation in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah and in the Devo-
nianMississippian black shales in the eastern United States.
Oil shale associated with coal deposits of Pennsylvanian age
is also in the eastern United States. Other deposits are known
to be in Nevada, Montana, Alaska, Kansas, and elsewhere, but
these are either too small, too low grade, or have not yet been
well enough explored (Russell, 1990, p. 82157) to be consid-
ered as resources for the purposes of this report. Because of
their size and grade, most investigations have focused on the
Green River and the DevonianMississippian deposits.
Green River Formation
Geology
Lacustrine sediments of the Green River Formation were
deposited in two large lakes that occupied 65,000 km
2
in
several sedimentary-structural basins in Colorado, Wyoming,
and Utah during early through middle Eocene time (fig. 16).
The Uinta Mountain uplift and its eastward extension, the
Axial Basin anticline, separate these basins. The Green River
lake system was in existence for more than 10 million years
during a time of a warm temperate to subtropical climate.
United States 25
Table 6. Summary of the fossil energy potential of the Alum Shale in Sweden for
shale containing more than 10 percent organic matter (from Andersson and others,
1985, their table 2).
[wt %, weight percent; MJ, megajoules]
Area
Shale
tons
(10
6
)
Organic matter
wt % tons
(10
6
)
Shale oil
wt % tons
(10
6
)
Energy in
gas and coke
(10
12
MJ)
Nrke 1,700 20 340 5 85 8,800
stergtland 12,000 14 1,600 3.5 400 41,900
Vstergtland 14,000 13 1,840 03.4 220 53,300
land 6,000 12 700 2.7 170 18,000
Skne 15,000 11 1,600 0 0 58,600
Jmtland
(Caledonides)
26,000 12 3,200 0 0 117,200
Total 74,700 9,280 875 297,800
Figure 15. Lithology and plots of the abundances of organic carbon and uranium in a
drill core from the Alum Shale at Ranstad, Sweden. From Andersson and others (1985,
their fig. 9).
Meters
16
18
20
22
L
O
W
E
R

M
E
M
B
E
R
M
I
D
D
L
E

M
E
M
B
E
R
U
P
P
E
R

M
E
M
B
E
R
24
ORGANIC CARBON
(Weight percent)
URANIUM
(Parts per million)
Sandstone
Limestone
Oil shale
Calcite
concretions
Glauconitic
shale
10
12
14
2
4
6
8
0
0 4 8 12 16 20
0 200 400
Table 7. Oil-shale deposits of Turkey. Data from Gle and nen (1993) and Sener and others (1995).
[wt %, weight percent; kcal/kg, kilocalories per kilogram of rock; MJ/kg, megajoules per kilogram. For those deposits
lacking average oil yields, an estimated yield of 5 weight percent was assumed. For deposits where two tonnages were
given in the references, the larger number was used]
Deposit and
province
Calorific
value
Average
oil yield
(wt %)
Total
sulfur
(wt %)
Oil-shale
resource
(10
6
tons)
Shale-oil
resource
(10
6
tons)
Bahecik (Izmit) 4181,875 kcal/kg 100 5
Beypazari (Ankara) 3.40 MJ/kg 5.4 1.4 1,058 57
Burhaniye (Balikesir) 01,768 kcal/kg 80 4
Glpazari (Bilecik) 01,265 kcal/kg 356 18
Gynk (Bolu) 3.25 MJ/kg 4.6 0.9 2.500 115
Hatildag (Bolu) 3.24 MJ/kg 5.3 1.3 547 29
Seyitmer (Ktahya) 3.55 MJ/kg 5.0 0.9 1,000 50
Ulukisla (Nigde) 6302,790 kcal/kg 130 6
Total 5,771 284
During parts of their history, the lake basins were closed, and
the waters became highly saline.
Fluctuations in the amount of inflowing stream waters
caused large expansions and contractions of the lakes as evi-
denced by widespread intertonguing of marly lacustrine strata
with beds of land-derived sandstone and siltstone. During arid
times, the lakes contracted, and the waters became increas-
ingly saline and alkaline. The lake-water content of soluble
sodium carbonates and chloride increased, whereas the less
soluble divalent Ca+Mg+Fe carbonates were precipitated with
organic-rich sediments. During the driest periods, the lake
waters reached salinities sufficient to precipitate beds of nah-
colite, halite, and trona. The sediment pore waters were suffi-
ciently saline to precipitate disseminated crystals of nahcolite,
shortite, and dawsonite along with a host of other authigenic
carbonate and silicate minerals (Milton, 1977).
A noteworthy aspect of the mineralogy is the complete
lack of authigenic sulfate minerals. Although sulfate was prob-
ably a major anion in the stream waters entering the lakes, the
sulfate ion was presumably totally consumed by sulfate-reduc-
ing bacteria in the lake and sediment waters according to the
following generalized oxidation-reduction reaction:

2CH
2
O + SO
4
2
2HCO
3
1
+ H
2
S
Note that two moles of bicarbonate are formed for each
mole of sulfate that is reduced. The resulting hydrogen sulfide
could either react with available Fe++ to precipitate as iron
sulfide minerals or escape from the sediments as a gas (Dyni,
1998). Other major sources of carbonate include calcium
carbonate-secreting algae, hydrolysis of silicate minerals, and
direct input from inflowing streams.
The warm alkaline lake waters of the Eocene Green River
lakes provided excellent conditions for the abundant growth
of blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) that are thought to be the
major precursor of the organic matter in the oil shale. During
times of freshening waters, the lakes hosted a variety of fishes,
rays, bivalves, gastropods, ostracodes, and other aquatic fauna.
Areas peripheral to the lakes supported a large and varied
assemblage of land plants, insects, amphibians, turtles, lizards,
snakes, crocodiles, birds, and numerous mammalian animals
(McKenna, 1960; MacGinitie, 1969; and Grande, 1984).
Historical Developments
The occurrence of oil shale in the Green River Formation
in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming has been known for many
years. During the early 1900s, it was clearly established that
the Green River deposits were a major resource of shale oil
(Woodruff and Day, 1914; Winchester, 1916; Gavin, 1924).
During this early period, the Green River and other deposits
were investigated, including oil shale of the marine Phosphoria
Formation of Permian age in Montana (Bowen, 1917; Condit,
1919) and oil shale in Tertiary lake beds near Elko, Nevada
(Winchester, 1923).
In 1967, the U.S. Department of Interior began an exten-
sive program to investigate the commercialization of the Green
River oil-shale deposits. The dramatic increases in petroleum
prices resulting from the OPEC oil embargo of 197374
triggered another resurgence of oil-shale activities during the
1970s and into the early 1980s. In 1974 several parcels of pub-
lic oil-shale lands in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming were put
up for competitive bid under the Federal Prototype Oil Shale
United States 27
Leasing Program. Two tracts were leased in Colorado (C-a and
C-b) and two in Utah (U-a and U-b) to oil companies.
Large underground mining facilities, including vertical
shafts, room-and-pillar entries, and modified in-situ retorts,
were constructed on Tracts C-a and C-b, but little or no shale
oil was produced. During this time, Unocal Oil Company was
developing its oil-shale facilities on privately owned land
on the south side of the Piceance Creek Basin. The facilities
included a room-and-pillar mine with a surface entry, a 10,000
barrel/day (1,460 ton/day) retort, and an upgrading plant. A
few miles north of the Unocal property, Exxon Corporation
opened a room-and-pillar mine with a surface entry, haulage
roads, waste-rock dumpsite, and a water-storage reservoir and
dam.
In 197778 the U.S. Bureau of Mines opened an experi-
mental mine that included a 723-m-deep shaft with several
room-and-pillar entries in the northern part of the Piceance
Creek Basin to conduct research on the deeper deposits of oil
shale, which are commingled with nahcolite and dawsonite.
The site was closed in the late 1980s.
About $80 million were spent on the U-a/U-b tracts in
Utah by three energy companies to sink a 313-m-deep verti-
cal shaft and inclined haulage way to a high-grade zone of
oil shale and to open several small entries. Other facilities
included a mine services building, water- and sewage-treat-
ment plants, and a water-retention dam.
The Seep Ridge project sited south of the U-a/U-b
tracts, funded by Geokinetics, Inc. and the U.S. Department
of Energy, produced shale oil by a shallow in-situ retorting
method. Several thousand barrels of shale oil were produced.
The Unocal oil-shale plant was the last major project
to produce shale oil from the Green River Formation. Plant
construction began in 1980, and capital investment for con-
structing the mine, retort, upgrading plant, and other facili-
ties was $650 million. Unocal produced 657,000 tons (about
4.4 million bbls) of shale oil, which were shipped to Chicago
Figure 16. Areas underlain by the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming,
United States.
BASIN
UNITA BASIN
112
43
111
113
41
38
107
N
0 100 KILOMETERS 50
Rifle
Grand
Junction
Meeker
Vernal
WYOMING
COLORADO
Rock Springs
IDAHO
UTAH
SALT LAKE CITY
GREEN RIVER
Kemmerer
WASHAKIE
BASIN
SAND WASH
BASIN
PICEANCE
CREEK BASIN
MAP OF THE UNITED STATES
Location
of figure
U
T
A
H
C
O
L
O
R
A
D
O
EXPLANATION
Green River
Formation
Bedded trona
and halite
Nahcolite
and halite
for refining into transportation fuels and other products under
a program partly subsidized by the U.S. Government. The
average rate of production in the last months of operation was
about 875 tons (about 5,900 barrels) of shale oil per day; the
facility was closed in 1991.
In the past few years, Shell Oil Company began an
experimental field project to recover shale oil by a proprietary
in-situ technique. Some details about the project have been
publicly announced, and the results to date (2006) appear to
favor continued research.
Shale-Oil Resources
As the Green River oil-shale deposits in Colorado
became better known, estimates of the resource increased
from about 20 billion barrels in 1916, to 900 billion barrels
in 1961, and to 1.0 trillion barrels (~147 billion tons) in 1989
(Winchester, 1916, p. 140; Donnell, 1961; Pitman and others,
1989). A lithologic section and a summary of the resources
by oil-shale zones in the Piceance Creek Basin are shown in
figure 17.
The Green River oil-shale resources in Utah and Wyo-
ming are not as well known as those in Colorado. Trudell and
others (1983, p. 57) calculated the measured and estimated
resources of shale oil in an area of about 5,200 km
2
in eastern
Uinta Basin, Utah, to be 214 billion barrels (31 billion tons) of
which about one-third is in the rich Mahogany oil-shale zone.
Culbertson and others (1980, p. 17) estimated the oil-shale
resources in the Green River Formation in the Green River
Basin in southwest Wyoming to be 244 billion barrels (~35
billion tons) of shale oil.
Additional resources are also in the Washakie Basin east
of the Green River Basin in southwest Wyoming. Trudell
and others (1973) reported that several members of the
Green River Formation on Kinney Rim on the west side of
the Washakie Basin contain sequences of low to moderate
grades of oil shale in three core holes. Two sequences of oil
shale in the Laney Member, 11 and 42 m thick, average 63 l/t
and represent as much as 8.7 million tons of in-situ shale oil
per square kilometer. A total estimate of the resource in the
Washakie Basin was not reported for lack of subsurface data.
Other Mineral Resources
In addition to fossil energy, the Green River oil-shale
deposits in Colorado contain valuable resources of sodium
carbonate minerals including nahcolite (NaHCO
3
) and daw-
sonite [NaAl(OH)
2
CO
3
]. Both minerals are commingled with
high-grade oil shale in the deep northern part of the basin.
Dyni (1974) estimated the total nahcolite resource at 29 bil-
lion tons. Beard and others (1974) estimated nearly the same
amount of nahcolite and 17 billion tons of dawsonite. Both
minerals have value for soda ash (Na
2
CO
3
) and dawsonite also
has potential value for its alumina (Al
2
O
3
) content. The latter
mineral is most likely to be recovered as a byproduct of an
oil-shale operation. One company is solution mining nahcolite
for the manufacture of sodium bicarbonate in the northern part
of the Piceance Creek Basin at depths of about 600 m (Day,
1998). Another company stopped solution mining nahcolite in
2004, but now processes soda ash obtained from the Wyoming
trona deposits to manufacture sodium bicarbonate.
The Wilkins Peak Member of the Green River Formation
in the Green River Basin in southwestern Wyoming contains
not only oil shale but also the worlds largest known resource
of natural sodium carbonate as trona (Na
2
CO
3
.NaHCO
3
.2H
2
O).
The trona resource is estimated at more than 115 billion tons
in 22 beds ranging from 1.2 to 9.8 m in thickness (Wiig and
others, 1995). In 1997, trona production from five mines was
16.5 million tons (Harris, 1997). Trona is refined into soda
ash (Na
2
CO
3
) used in the manufacture of bottle and flat glass,
baking soda, soap and detergents, waste treatment chemicals,
and many other industrial chemicals. One ton of soda ash is
obtained from about two tons of trona ore. Wyoming trona
supplies about 90 percent of U.S. soda ash needs; in addition,
about one-third of the total Wyoming soda ash produced is
exported.
In the deeper part of the Piceance Creek Basin, the Green
River oil shale contains a potential resource of natural gas,
but its economic recovery is questionable (Cole and Daub,
1991). Natural gas is also present in the Green River oil-shale
deposits in southwest Wyoming, and probably in the oil shale
in Utah, but in unknown quantities. A summary of the oil shale
and mineral resources of the Green River Formation in Colo-
rado, Wyoming, and Utah is given in table 8.
Eastern DevonianMississippian Oil Shale
Depositional Environment
Black organic-rich marine shale and associated sedi-
ments of Late Devonian and Early Mississippian age underlie
about 725,000 km
2
in the eastern United States (fig. 18). These
shales have been exploited for many years as a resource of
natural gas, but have also been considered as a potential low-
grade resource of shale oil and uranium (Roen and Kepferle,
1993; Conant and Swanson, 1961).
Over the years, geologists have applied many local names
to these shales and associated rocks, including the Chatta-
nooga, New Albany, Ohio, Sunbury, Antrim, and others. A
group of papers detailing the stratigraphy, structure, and gas
potential of these rocks in eastern United States have been
published by the U.S. Geological Survey (Roen and Kepferle,
1993).
The black shales were deposited during Late Devonian
and Early Mississippian time in a large epeiric sea that cov-
ered much of middle and eastern United States east of the Mis-
sissippi River (fig. 18). The area included the broad, shallow,
United States 29
Figure 17. Generalized stratigraphic section of the Green River Formation and associated rocks in the north-
central part of the Piceance Creek Basin, northwestern Colorado, United States. Adapted from Cole and Daub (1991,
their fig. 2). The shale-oil resource data, converted from U.S. barrels to metric tons, are from Pitman and others
(1989).
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
C C C
EXPLANATION
Sandstone, siltstone, and some
marlstone and lean oil shale
Marlstone and low-grade oil shale
Leached oil shale; contains open solution
cavities and marlstone solution breccias
Nahcolite-bearing oil shale; contains nodules,
scattered crystals, and beds of nahcolite
Clay-bearing oil shale
Interbedded halite, nahcolite, and oil shale
Nahcolite and oil shale
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
A-GROOVE
MAHOGANY
ZONE
B-GROOVE
R-6
L-5

P
A
R
A
C
H
U
T
E

C
R
E
E
K

M
E
M
B
E
R

G
R
E
E
N

R
I
V
E
R

F
O
R
M
A
T
I
O
N
R-5
L-4
R-4
L-3
R-3
L-2
R-2
L-1
R-1
L-0
R-0
ANVIL POINTS
MEMBER
G
A
R
D
E
N

G
U
L
C
H
M
E
M
B
E
R
UPPER SALT
LOWER SALT
GREENO BED
LEACHED
ZONE
SALINE
ZONE
DISSOLUTION
SURFACE
R-8
UINTA FORMATION
(WITH TONGUES OF
GREEN RIVER FM.)
Oil shale
0
DEPTH
(meters)
GENERALIZED
LITHOLOGY
SHALE OIL RESOURCES
Shale oil
Zone
R-8 (ND) (ND)
25.25 172.94
23.23 159.09
7.65 52.42
26.09 178.72
8.88 60.85
15.74 107.78
2.73 18.72
8.52 58.38
2.93 20.08
7.75 53.07
1.56 10.70
16.84 115.35
Mahogany
R-6
L-5
R-5
L-4
R-4
L-3
R-3
L-2
R-2
L-1
R-1
Total 147.17 1008.10
(10
9
tons) (10
9
bbls)
Interior Platform on the west that grades eastward into the
Appalachian Basin. The depth to the base of the Devonian
Mississippian black shales ranges from surface exposures on
the Interior Platform to more than 2,700 m along the deposi-
tional axis of the Appalachian Basin (de Witt and others, 1993,
their pl. 1).
The Late Devonian sea was relatively shallow with mini-
mal current and wave action, much like the environment in
which the Alum Shale of Sweden was deposited in Europe. A
large part of the organic matter in the black shale is amorphous
bituminite, although a few structured fossil organisms such as
Tasmanites, Botryococcus, Foerstia, and others have been rec-
ognized. Conodonts and linguloid brachiopods are sparingly
distributed through some beds. Although much of the organic
matter is amorphous and of uncertain origin, it is generally
believed that much of it was derived from planktonic algae.
In the distal parts of the Devonian sea, the organic matter
accumulated very slowly along with very fine-grained clayey
sediments in poorly oxygenated waters free of burrowing
organisms. Conant and Swanson (1961, p. 54) estimated that
30 cm of the upper part of the Chattanooga Shale deposited on
the Interior Platform in Tennessee could represent as much as
150,000 years of sedimentation.
The black shales thicken eastward into the Appalachian
Basin owing to increasing amounts of clastic sediments that
were shed into the Devonian sea from the Appalachian high-
land lying to the east of the basin. Pyrite and marcasite are
abundant authigenic minerals, but carbonate minerals are only
a minor fraction of the mineral matter.
Resources
The oil-shale resource is in that part of the Interior Plat-
form where the black shales are the richest and closest to the
surface. Although long known to produce oil upon retorting,
the organic matter in the DevonianMississippian black shale
yields only about half as much as the organic matter of the
Green River oil shale, which is thought to be attributable to
Table 8. Summary of the energy and mineral resources of the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming,
United States. Data from Donnell (1980), Culbertson and others (1980), Trudell and others (1983), Dyni (1974, 1997), Beard
and others (1974), Cole and Daub (1991), Pitman and Johnson (1978), Pitman and others (1989), Wiig and others (1995),
and unpublished data from the U.S. Bureau of Mines (1981).
[km
2
, square kilometers; l/t, liters per ton; m
3
, cubic meters]
Basin Area
(km
2
)
Federal lands
(percent)
Resources
Grade Shale oil
(l/t) (10
9
tons)
Shale-oil resources
Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado 4,600 79
1
63 147
104 (85)
2
125 (49)
2
Uinta Basin, Utah 2,150 77 42 31
Green River Basin, Wyoming 1,200 62 63 35.4
(475)
2
125 (1.9)
2
Total 7,900 213
Other resources
Green River Basin, Wyoming
Trona 2,800 57 115
Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado
Dawsonite 1,300 26
Nahcolite 660 29
Natural gas >230 130x10
9
m
3
1
The percentage of Federal lands in the Piceance Creek Basin has been reduced by several percent from this figure owing to the transfer of
a group of oil-shale placer claims to private ownership.
2
Data included in the total figure for the basin.
United States 31
K Y
M
i
s
s
i
s
s
i
p
p
i

R
i
v
e
r
TN
SC
GA
AL
FL
MS
IL
IN
OH
PA
N Y
ME
NH
VT
MA
CT
R.I.
WI
MI
NC
WV
VA
NJ
S
t
.

L
a
w
r
e
n
c
e

R
i
v
e
r
DE
MD
MI
O
h
i
o

R
i
v
e
r
SHORELINE OF LATE
DEVONIAN SEA
SHORELINE OF LATE
DEVONIAN SEA
M
i
s
s
i
s
s
i
p
p
i

R
i
v
e
r
MAJOR AREAS OF
MINEABLE OIL SHALE
CANADA
N
SOUTHERN LIMIT
OF WISCONSIN
GLACIAL DRIFT
Figure 18. Paleogeographic map showing shoreline of the Late Devonian sea in eastern United States
and major areas of surface-mineable Devonian oil shale. After Conant and Swanson (1961, their fig. 13) and
Matthews and others (1980, their fig. 5).
differences in the type of organic matter (or type of organic
carbon) in each of the oil shales. The DevonianMississippian
oil shale has a higher ratio of aromatic to aliphatic organic
carbon than Green River oil shale, and is shown by mate-
rial balance Fischer assays to yield much less shale oil and a
higher percentage of carbon residue (Miknis, 1990).
Hydroretorting DevonianMississippian oil shale can
increase the oil yield by more than 200 percent of the value
determined by Fischer assay. In contrast, the conversion of
organic matter to oil by hydroretorting is much less for Green
River oil shale, about 130 to 140 percent of the Fischer assay
value. Other marine oil shales also respond favorably to hydro-
retorting, with yields as much as, or more than, 300 percent of
the Fischer assay (Dyni, and others, 1990).
Matthews and others (1980) evaluated the DevonianMis-
sissippian oil shales in areas of the Interior Platform where the
shales are rich enough in organic matter and close enough to
the surface to be mineable by open pit. Results of investiga-
tions in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan,
eastern Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia indicated that
98 percent of the near-surface mineable resources are in Ken-
tucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee (Matthews, 1983).
The criteria for the evaluation of the DevonianMissis-
sippian oil-shale resource used by Matthews and others (1980)
were:
1. Organic carbon content: 10 weight percent
2. Overburden: 200 m
3. Stripping ratio: 2.5:1
4. Thickness of shale bed: 3 m
5. Open-pit mining and hydroretorting
On the basis of these criteria, the total DevonianMis-
sissippian shale oil resources were estimated to be 423 billion
barrels (61 billion tons); resources by State are summarized in
table 9.
Summary of World Resources of
Shale Oil
Resources of shale oil for selected deposits worldwide are
listed in alphabetical order by country in table 10. Individual
deposits for some countries are listed under subheadings, com-
monly by States or Provinces.
Because of widespread use in the reporting of petroleum
and shale-oil resources, quantities are expressed in terms of
U.S. barrels in table 10; resources are also reported in metric
tons of shale oil. Sources of information (author and date of
reference) are given for most of the deposits. The data are too
sparse for most deposits to differentiate between resources and
reserves of oil shale.
The grade of the oil-shale resource is not indicated in the
table. However, it can be assumed that most of the deposits
listed will yield, by Fischer assay, at least 40 or more liters of
shale oil per ton of oil shale.
For some countries, shale-oil resources of individual
deposits are listed. Resources for individual deposits are
shown in parentheses when they are included in the total
resource figure for a country. Resource figures shown in
boldface are from data reported in the literature; the associated
figure in normal type was calculated for table 10.
The reliability of resource data, as indicated in the fore-
going sections of this report, ranges from excellent to poor.
Data for some deposits that have been explored extensively
by core drilling are good, such as the Green River oil shale in
Colorado, the kukersite deposit in Estonia, and some of the
Tertiary deposits in eastern Queensland, Australia, are espe-
cially good in comparison to others.
A few large deposits of oil shale, such as the Toolebuc
oil shale of Queensland, Australia, are too low-grade to be uti-
lized in the near future. However, improved methods of min-
ing and processing could change their economic status. The
largest and richest known deposit by far is the Green River oil
shale in western United States. In Colorado alone, the total
resource reaches one trillion barrels, of which one-quarter to
perhaps as much as one-third may be recoverable with mining
and processing techniques available today.
Some countries having good-quality oil shale but lacking
petroleum and (or) coal resources will continue to mine oil
shale for transportation fuels, petrochemicals, fuel for electric
power plants, building materials, and other byproducts. How-
ever, their oil-shale industries face imposing challenges from
cheaper resources of crude petroleum and coal, as well as from
air and water pollution problems.
Production of oil shale from several countries, for which
some data are available, are shown in figure 19. World oil-
shale production peaked in 1980 when 47 million tons were
mined, much of it in Estonia where it was used mainly for fuel
in several large electric power plants.
Table 9. Estimated resources of near-surface oil shale in
eastern United States by hydroretorting. Data derived from
Matthews and others (1980, their table 3).
[km
2
, square kilometer; hectare=2.47 acres]
State
Area
(km
2
)
Shale oil
tons (10
9
) tons/hectare
Ohio 2,540 20.2 79,000
Kentucky 6,860 27.4 40,000
Tennessee 3,990 6.3 15,500
Indiana 1,550 5.8 37,000
Michigan 410 0.7 17,500
Alabama 780 0.6 7,500
Total
16,130 61.0
Summary of World Resources of Shale Oil 33
Table 10. In-situ shale-oil resources of some world oil-shale deposits.
Country, region,
and deposit
1
Age
2
In-place
shale-oil
resources
3
(10
6
bbls)
In-place
shale-oil
resources
3
(10
6
tons)
Date
of
estimation
4
Source of information
Argentina 400 57 1962
Armenia
Aramus T 305 44 1994 Pierce & others (1994)
5
Australia
New South Wales P 40 6 1987 Crisp & others (1987)
Queensland
Alpha P 80 1 1987 Matheson (1987)
6
Byfield T 249 36 1999 Wright (1999, written commun.)
6
Condor T 9,700 1,388 do do
Duaringa (upper unit) T 4,100 587 do do
Herbert Creek Basin T 1,530 219 do do
Julia Creek K 1,700 243 do do
Lowmead T 740 106 do do
Mt. Coolon T 72 10 do do
Nagoorin Basin T 3,170 454 do do
Rundle T 2,600 372 do do
Stuart T 3,000 429 do do
Yaamba T 4,100 587 do Wright (1999, written commun.)
7
South Australia
Leigh Creek d 600 86 1999 Wright (1999, written commun.)
6
Tasmania
Mersey River P 48 7 1987 Crisp & others (1987)
Austria 8 1 1974
Belarus
Pripyat Basin D 6,988 1,000
Brazil
Irat Formation
Paraba Valley
P
T
80,000
2,000
11,448
286
1994
1969
Afonso & others (1994)
Padula (1969)
Bulgaria 125 18 1962
Canada
Manitoba-Saskatchewan
Favel-Boyne Formations K 1,250

191 1981 Macauley (1981, 1984a, 1986)
8
Nova Scotia
Stellarton Basin
Antigonish Basin
P-h 1,174
531
168
76
1989
1990
Smith & others (1989)
8
Smith & Naylor (1990)
New Brunswick
Albert Mines
Dover
Rosevale
M
M
M
269
14
3
38
2
0.4
1988
do
do
Ball & Macauley (1988)
do
do
Newfoundland
Deer Lake Basin M ? ? 1984 Hyde (1984)
9
Table 10. In-situ shale-oil resources of some world oil-shale depositsContinued.
Country, region,
and deposit
1
Age
2
In-place
shale-oil
resources
3
(10
6
bbls)
In-place
shale-oil
resources
3
(10
6
tons)
Date
of
estimation
4
Source
of
information
Nunavut
Sverdrup Basin M ? ? 1988 Davies & Nassichuk (1988)
10
Ontario
Collingwood Shale O 12,000 1,717 1986 Macauley (1986)
Kettle Point Fm D ? ? 1986 do
Chile 21 3 1936
China
Moaming
Fushun
T
T
16,000
(2,271)
(127)
2,290
(325)
(18)
1985
1988
1990
Du & Nuttall (1985)
11
Guo-Quan (1988)
Johnson (1990)
Congo, Republic of 100,000 14,310 1958
Egypt
Safaga-Quseir area
Abu Tartur area
K
K
4,500
1,200
644
172
1984
1984
Troger (1984)
Troger (1984)
Estonia
Estonia deposit
Dictyonema Shale
O
O
3,900
12,386
594
1,900
1998 Kattai & Lokk (1998)
12
France 7,000 1,002 1978
Germany 2,000 286 1965
Hungary 56 8 1995 Papay (1998)
13
Iraq
Yarmouk K ? ? 1999
May be very large;
See Jordan
Israel 4,000 550 1982 Minster & Shirav (1982)
14
Italy
Sicily
10,000
63,000
1,431
9,015
1979
1978
Jordan
Attarat Umm Ghudran K 8,103 1,243 1997 Jaber & others (1997)
15
El Lajjun K 821 126 1997 do
Juref ed Darawish K 3,325 510 1997 do
Sultani K 482 74 1997 do
Wadi Maghar K 14,009 2,149 1997 do
Wadi Thamad K 7,432 1,140 1997 do
Yarmouk K (Large) 1999 Minster (1999)
16
Kazakhstan
Kenderlyk field 2,837 400 1996 Yefimov (1996)
17
Luxembourg J 675 97 1993 Robl and others (1993)
Madagascar 32 5 1974
Mongolia
Khoot J 294 42 2001 Avid and Purevsuren (2001)
Morocco
Timahdit
Tarfaya Zone R
K
K
11,236
42,145
1,719
6,448
1984
1984
Bouchta (1984)
18
do

Country, region,
and deposit
1
Age
2
In-place
shale-oil
resources
3
(10
6
bbls)
In-place
shale-oil
resources
3
(10
6
tons)
Date
of
estimation
4
Source
of
information
Myanmar (Burma) 2,000 286 1924
New Zealand 19 3 1976
Poland 48 7 1974
Russia
St. Petersburg kukersite O 25,157 3,600
Timano-Petchorsk Basin J 3,494 500
Vychegodsk Basin J 19,580 2,800
Central Basin ? 70 10
Volga Basin ? 31,447 4,500
Turgai & Nizheiljisk deposit ? 210 30
Olenyok Basin e 167,715 24,000
Other deposits 210 30
South Africa 130 19 1937
Spain 280 40 1958
Sweden
Narke e 594 85 1985 Andersson & others (1985)
Ostergotland e 2,795 400 1985 do
Vastergotland e 1,537 220 1985 do
Oland e 1,188 170 1985 do
Thailand
Deposit & (Province)
Mae Sot (Tak) T 6,400 916 1988 Vanichseni & others (1988)
Li (Lampoon) T 1 1988 do
Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan
Amudarja Basin
19
P 7,687 1,100
Turkey
Deposit & (Province)
Bahcecik (Izmit) T 35 5 1993 Gle & nen (1993)
20
Beypazari (Ankara) T 398 57 1995 Sener & others (1995)
Burhaniye (Bahkesir) T 28 4 1993 Gle & nen (1993)
Golpazari (Bilecik) T 126 18 1993 do
Goynuk (Bolu) T 804 115 1995 Sener & others (1995)
Hatildag (Bolu) T 203 29 1995 do
Seyitomer (Kutahya) T 349 50 1995 do
Ulukisla (Nigde) T 42 6 1993 Gle & nen (1993)
Ukraine
Boltysh deposit 4,193 600 1988 Tsherepovski
United Kingdom 3,500 501 1975
Country, region,
and deposit
1
Age
2
In-place
shale-oil
resources
3
(10
6
bbls)
In-place
shale-oil
resources
3
(10
6
tons)
Date
of
estimation
4
Source
of
information
United States
Eastern Devonian shale D 189,000 27,000 1980 Matthews & others (1980)
21
Green River Fm T 1,466,000 213,000 1999 This report
Phosphoria Fm P 250,000 35,775 1980 Smith (1980)
Heath Fm M 180,000 25,758 1980 do
Elko Fm T 228 33 1983 Moore & others (1983)
Uzbekistan
Kyzylkum Basin 8,386 1,200
Total (rounded) 2,826,000 409,000
1
The resources in the above table are listed by country in alphabetical order. For some countries, the deposits are listed under State or Province.
2
The age of the deposit, when known, is indicated by the following symbols: e, Cambrian; O, Ordovician; D, Devonian; M, Mississippian
(Early Carboniferous); h, Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous); P, Permian; d, Triassic; J, Jurassic; K, Cretaceous; and T, Tertiary.
3
The resources of shale oil are given in U.S. barrels and metric tons. Resource numbers in boldface type are from the references cited; the
associated number in nonboldface type was calculated for this table. In several cases, resource numbers in parentheses are included in the total
resource number for the country. To determine tons of resources from volumetric data, it is necessary to know the specific gravity of the shale oil.
In some cases, this value was given in the source reference; if not, a specific gravity of 0.910 was assumed.
4
The date of estimation is the publication date of the source reference. If a reference is not listed for a deposit, the resource data are from
Russell (1990). A few deposits for which no resource numbers are given are still listed in the table because they are believed to be of significant
size.
5
The resource was estimated by assuming seven beds of oil shale totaling 14 m in thickness, which underlie 22 square kilometers and have an
average oil-shale bulk density of 2.364 gm/cc.
6
Shale-oil specific gravity (SG) of 0.910 was assumed. Resource data from Matheson (1987) augmented by a personal communication from Dr.
Bruce Wright to Professor J.L. Qian dated March 29, 1999.
7
McFarlane (1984) gives the Yaamba deposit as 2.92 billion in-situ barrels of shale oil.
8
Shale oil SG of 0.910 was assumed.
9
The west side of the basin is largely unexplored and may contain oil-shale deposits.
10
Alginite-rich oil shale is found in the Lower Carboniferous Emma Fiord Formation at several localities in the Sverdrup Basin. On Ellemere
Island the shale is geothermally overmature, but on Devon Island, the oil shale is immature to marginally mature.
11
Chinas total oil-shale resources are given by Du and Nuttall (1985, p. 211).
12
A shale-oil yield of 10 wt pct and a shale oil SG of 0.968 were used to calculate barrels of resources (Yefimov and others, 1997, p. 600).
Kogerman (1997, p. 629) gives the range of oil yields of Estonian kukersite as 1218 wt pct.
13
Assumed a shale-oil yield of 8 wt pct and a shale-oil SG of 0.910.
14
Fainberg and Hetsroni (1996) estimate Israels oil-shale reserves at 12 billion tons, which equates to 600 million tons of shale oil.
15
Shale-oil SG of 0.968 was assumed.
16
The oil-shale deposit underlies several hundred square kilometers and reaches 400 m in thickness (Minster, 1999, written commun.).
17
Shale-oil SG of 0.900 was assumed.
18
Shale-oil SG of 0.970 was assumed. Occidental Oil Company made the estimate of the Timahdit resource and Bouchta estimated the Tarfaya
resource; details of both estimates are in Bouchta (1984).
19
Amudarja Basin extends across border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
20
Gle and nen (1993) reported 5,196 million tons of oil shale in seven deposits but no shale-oil numbers. Graham and others (1993) esti-
mate the Goynuk resource at 9 billion tons of oil shale. Sener and others (1995) reported 1,865 million tons of oil shale in four Turkish deposits.
21
The Devonian oil-shale resource estimated by Matthews and others (1980) is based on hydroretorting analyses. To make these results compat-
ible with the rest of the resource data in this table, which are based mostly on Fischer assay analyses, the resource numbers given by Matthews
and others (1980) were reduced by 64 percent.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Germany
Maoming
Fushun
Brazil
Scotland
Kashpir
Leningrad
Estonia
M
E
T
R
I
C

T
O
N
S
,

M
I
L
L
I
O
N
S
Figure 19. Production of oil shale in millions of metric tons from Estonia (Estonia deposit), Russia
(Leningrad and Kashpir deposits), United Kingdom (Scotland, Lothians), Brazil (Irat Formation), China
(Maoming and Fushun deposits), and Germany (Dotternhausen) from 1880 to 2000.
The total resource of oil shale of 409 billion tons
(2.9 trillion U.S. barrels) listed in table 10 should be consid-
ered a minimum figure, because numerous deposits are still
largely unexplored or were not included in this study. Further
exploration will undoubtedly add many more billions of tons
of in-situ shale oil to this total.
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Manuscript approved for publication December 28, 2005
Published in the Central Region, Denver, Colorado
Graphics by author
Photocomposition by Sharon Powers
Edited by Tom Judkins

Geology and Resources of Some World Oil-Shale Deposits

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8 Geology and Resources of Some World Oil-Shale Deposits

sparse. The Irat oil shale is not notably enriched in metals,

Summary of World Resources of Shale Oil 35

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